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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- Designing Magic: the Gathering sets has always been something that has fascinated me, as there is so many considerations that go into every part of a card and of the set as a whole. But there has been this shift as of late that I have noticed, a difference in design philosophy in recent years. You see there are two core patterns for crafting a set, and those are top-down and bottom-up design. Or flavor first versus mechanics first, and in the last few years Magic has leaned more into top-down then it ever has in its history, but why is that? It's a question I had to get to the bottom of, but I knew that before I could come to conclusion I should first have a better understanding these concepts, and really that's why I put this video together. As a way to not just uncover the complexities of these design principles, fascinating as they are, but to apply what I have learned to answer the very question that set me on this quest. In this video I will take you through what I have learned, of the surprises and depths of design, in hopes that together we can come to a conclusion. So join me as we talk the principles of top-down versus bottom-up design in Magic: the Gathering.
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I just want to say, thank you for your patience while I took my break from TH-cam. This is a topic I have been wanting to talk about for a while now and I hope you enjoyed it!
No problem. After all, it's you that matters in this endeavor, not us.
Thank you for taking the time you needed to make another banger of a video! This was definitely worth the wait.
Ay yo no problem. Love the videos. And i love hearing your insite about magic. I love that you see the game for more than just it's base value.
I appreciate the sentiment but you have to understand that in general, people aren’t waiting with bated breath for your next video to drop. Yours not anyone else’s
@thatguymatt5816 id say I'm super excited and eager at the sound of new videos. Im in the discord and when he mentioned a new video i was super excited. I'm not speaking for everyone but i will say that there are alot of ppl in this specific community of magic, myself included, who are breath bated for upcoming videos.
2 universes beyond sets per year is crazy… I remember when people would just homebrew custom magic cards based on their favorite characters from a game/movie/show and now it’s just back to back official products of those same things. 5 or 6 years ago if someone showed up to a game with a stranger things character or something like Optimus Prime or Captain America or whatever, it was a cool little homemade magic card you hoped wasn’t too busted or a custom art proxy or something, now we have 2 of those things already real and they’ve confirmed a marvel crossover…
It's all Hasbro budgeting, CEO pay bonuses, and gross mismanagement of other properties. I'm all for the occasional universes beyond set, but if the problem is money, they perhaps you should stop trying to make your money-makers make more money and start examining where you can avoid spending it elsewhere (like executive pay and shareholder returns).
All im getting from this video is that return to Lorwynn is gonna make me sad.
Yeeeeeep.
I’m right there with you friend. I have very low hopes.
Lorwyn is one of my favorite blocks ever and I fear the future. They're going to screw it up so badly.
Good choice of topic. I've felt like Thunder Junction and Markov Manor have *really* pushed top-down design to their limit. These are sets that feel like they struggled to find good mechanics that fit the theme: We want players to be able to commit crimes. Right, so, what do we want to be a crime? If Thunder Junction had been more of a bottom-up set, they may have been able to realise that "targeting things is a crime" doesn't make sense and the idea of "commiting a crime" might just not be mechanically suitable at all.
But on the other hand, some universes beyonds sets have genuinely had fantastic top-down design. Doctor Who especially did a great job of making a lot of cards feel mechanically and thematically harmonious, and for cards that couldn't be given specific resonance, was still able to tap well into larger set themes like "time" and "history" to give them mechanics that feel appropriate within the context of the set. And I think Doctor Who actually did have a surprise element - what got me interested in it was being surprised by all of the ideas they managed to include in interesting ways. In a way it was meeting expectations, but I was surprised by how well they managed to meet them.
And I think that the Kamigawa problem is really going to ramp up in the future. Rosewater said Kamigawa failed because the audience that was familiar enough with Japanese folklore to get Kamigawa was too small - well, I wonder how large the audience that really gets things like Bloomborough is going to be. Just as a result of chance, I happen to not have watched any Western movies, so I didn't get Thunder Junction. And I've not watched anything like Bloomborough, so I'm not going to get that. And I don't like modern horror, so I'm probably not going to like Duskmourn. And I've not watched any car racing stuff, so I'm not going to get 'Racing World'. I'm wondering when we're going to get a top down set that I *do* get - and how many other people aren't getting one or more of these niche top-down themes.
Which makes me wonder actually, whether universes beyond has kind of become necessary for MTG's top-down designers. The way we engage with media today is a lot less "genre-based" than 20 or 30 years ago. Now we're engaging more with franchises, and those franchises can even be cross-genre without feeling like proper entries into those genres. I think people are becoming more familiar with the tropes and references of individual franchises than with the tropes and references of broad genres, so for top-down sets to have the proper appeal, they're starting to need to be more franchise-based - The "Marvel" set is probably going to be much easier to engage with for most players than an MTG-themed "Superheros" set, with all new characters just referencing the tropes of the superhero genre.
I understand the struggle to make “new tools.” A friend and I spent the past 4 years designing our own custom set and making something unique, fair, and fun was definitely the most difficult part. Since we went mechanics first rather than flavor, we had nothing to lean back on. In the end, though, I believe we did some pretty stellar work with a very fun draft environment.
It's very satisfying to do that though, isn't it? Thinking up new mechanics that fit into the game, testing them, tweaking them, reinventing them, finding new inspirations. I personally find those sorts of sets much more fun to design than the top-down sets where I'm trying to represent things I like as magic cards.
Yes. Since we made the mechanics ourselves we have been able to do very inque stuff. Our mechanic in boros and selesnya focuses moves keyword abilities to attacking creatures from your other creatures. Naturally, the result is that small flyers came a premium and had to be nerfed.
I'm not sure that bottom up worlds need entirely new mechanics, though.... they can design a set around the mechanics they want to see then create a world around those mechanics. And they have more space to create those worlds now that the Phyrexian invasion has left some worlds pretty wrecked. Like there's space, for example, for another world to take over the Theros identity of a world where enchantments matter or playing mono color matters.
@@anthonydelfino6171 For sure. To be honest we sidelined story for fun mechanics anyway. IDK the evil "Sauron esque" guy is attacking the world with spooky death magic. Everyone must work together and utilize the unique mana properties on the plane to stop him. Also the are storms of raw mana that are preventing interplanar travel or something because planeswalkers are hard to balance.
@@anthonydelfino6171something I'd really love is to see a bit of the plane's mechanics bleeding into eachother.
Like how Kellan's cards have adventure because he's from Eldraine, but he uses the set's core mechanics.
I think a small amount of intermingling can create incredibly fresh designs even without adding too much complexity.
Like imagine a card with both innistrad and ixalan influences, with both daybound or disturb and craft. You can do very interesting things with very little.
Comfort is a trap, it makes sets so lame because they play it too safe. Every set is basically just universes beyond.
100% this: the sets born of Magic's own gameplay mechanics are always going to be the sets that feel the *most* MTG
@@granite_4576 yeah bottom up sets are interesting and more unique they had to work for it in terms of world building, Mirrodin and Kendikar are both good examples.
Praying that bloom burrow can pull us back to creating some fire sets. The sad thing is that I know that it probably won’t
I'd argue the issue is more with a company that is afraid of offending certain groups of people. There are plenty of Top-Down sets in the Magic IP that are looked upon favorably that didn't miss the mark flavor wise upon release such as the Gothic Horror and Eldritch horror sets of Inistrad and Zendikar's eldrazi or Arabian Nights.
Edit: I think it might be closer to the truth to say that WoTC wants to maintain it's investors and brand identity as an accepting and inclusive company which can make exploring difficult topics or new ideas less likely to occur. For example, a top down setting might be the perfect way to explore heavier topics and give a voice to people who feel as though they lack one. Ixalan could be seen as an example of this with the colonizers being literal vampires. I'm not saying that top down is the perfect system, I'm just not a fan of over-generalizing an issue that is most likely way more complex than it appears on the surface.
What you're saying seems contradictory because the universe is beyond decks are some of the most unique. Even after factoring out the literal uniqueness of them.
Let's remember that Arabian Nights, Fallen Empires, Homelands, & Kamigawa were top-down sets. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the style. That being said Lorwyn, Innistrad, & Theros weren't bad at all & they were top-down sets.
Interestingly when Mark talks about past top-down sets he always considers Arabian nights as not a true top down Magic set, as he says that it was just Garfield copying the source one for one, not finding the flavor in the themes.
@@DiceTry hmm... I mean it's not a bottom-up set either, but I suppose a set could be neither type.
I'm not convinced Theros counts as top-down actually. There are certainly some top-down elements, but it's a plane and set that feels awesome even when you know virtually nothing about Greek mythology, and you have some major concepts - Nyx, Eidolons and Returned - that you don't see in anything else that's based on Greek mythology.
Thing is: The flavour centered top-down approach requires a good flavour and story to be based around, otherwise it becomes an ecclectic and dissonant mix of cards that won't come together to form a greater whole. Outlaws of Thunder Junction ist such an odd thing that the top down approach just leads to a bad self-parody of serious magic. Magic has relied heavily on top down design for a decade now, but the best storyline still is that of Urza and Mishra from the 90s. The worlbuilding of Theros feels oddly thin. Amonkhet is just lazy. Greece and Egypt are such rich themes and those sets did not come close to doing anything interesting with it. This is where I disagree with MaRo's assessment of Kamigawa: I have no clue about Japanese culture, but a Magic set is allowed to contain the unknown. I was captivated by the mystery of Kamigawa and I think the world building of Kamigawa is much stronger than it would have been had it just been a collection of American cliches of Japanese culture.
Great take! I see it the same with lorwyn, where they took time to capture the feel of european folklore
totally agree. From a financial standpoint, leaning into a more cliché version of Japanese mythology might sell better, but in terms of artistic quality? Not so much.
I actually agree completely.
Outstanding video and a great explainer for a really useful concept to understand in game design. Appreciate the example of how missing a pillar of top-down design communication theory can make it fall apart. Really helped put into words feelings I have about universes beyond.
Glad you enjoyed it!
How can a game and especially mtg be exciting and present new surprising ideas when it's based on resonance?
And the answer is very simple and we already have examples of that in Pop culture. To illustrate it lets talk of one of, if not the most beloved Pokemon Fan Game ... maybe ever. Pokemon Infinite Fusion.
Most of us are familiar with Pokemon. You collect/befriend little creatures, that we let battle each other. We know the basic mechanics of there being types and such. The difference is just how deep our understanding of Pokemon is. But no matter from what entrypoint you look at Pokemon Infinite Fusion, it's fascinating. You get everythjing you expect from Pokemon, but always get something on top of that. From the simpelest point of just being curious how a mixture of Pikachu and Charizard may look like to combing Stats, Abilities, moves and types to make something more powerfully than before and need to strategize around that. It brings joy and challenges to every aspect of Pokemon no matter how deep your into the material.
How can that be adopted into mtg? Do I want mtg to focus on meld? While I would like the idea of a set focused on meld would be great, the basic idea of carrying fusion over to mtg is way simpler and a bit more abstract. We had sets like Theros focusing on Greek Mythology or Ixalon focusing on Pirate tales. Implementing Fusion takes this one step further. Instead of focusing on one idea, you focus on two ideas and see how they interact. Fuse the idea of a Waterworld with the idea of an mechanical plane for example. We know examples of what each on it's own might look like, but we don't know what the plane would look like exactly. Everybody has their own ideas, but if executed correctly we would get what the mtg design team is going for even if it is drastically different from what we would have envisioned those two concepts being combined. We get something surprising, that is at the same time familiar.
Mixing and matching has been in mtgs from the very beginning. Planeswalker walking to different Planes was a first light example of that. How does the character from this plane interact and function on this other plane? The wrong step would be to fuse Planes together like what would the combination of Theros and Ravnica look like. Combining Planes would result in a very unified thing, which is antithetical to what magic is. The universe shoulkd be vast and multifaceted. Create new planes, that don't embody one single ide, but take from multiple sources and combine them in new and fascinating ways to make the Multiverse even more colorfull than it already is.
Great video! I’ve always heard the developers talk about “bottom up” sets but, as a new player, I haven’t seen any of them before.
I couldn’t imagine any recent set that wasn’t a top down, theme first kind of set.
And now I know why. Because they just simply haven’t done one in a while.
Thank you for accurately describing the fatigue I’ve felt and seen in others these past few years. I love this game so much, as it has helped me create some of my closest friendships. A feeling I’ve had these past few sets (especially thunder junction) is a lack of depth compared to when I first played.
There is room for both.
Recently in Mark Rosewater's podcast episode about 3 color pairs and specifically wedges, he talked about the restriction they had to make for takir that they had to center the color trio's in one of the allied colors and how next time they would want to do it with enemy colors.
Strixhaven was also one of those weird sets that seems top down but was also made with the idea of enemy color factions that should play very differently than their Ravnican counterpart.
I have to strongly disagree that MtG has done it all see it all so just accept the Universes Beyond era. (I know that's not what you actually said but here I go anyways.) There are plently of mechanics and interesting designs out there for MtG to explore. Your Archplanes/4 Planes idea would be a solid 5 block by itself. It's a super intriguing concept and I'm pissed it'll never be given any official recognition, let alone be implemented. Is it a difficult and risky idea? Yeah and that's exactly why Wizards needs to do it.
Wizards needs to take more risks in general, including shaking off the chains of Hasbro and their bean counters.
The creator of Magic intended cards to have literal meaning, like flying mechanic literally representing they're in the air untouchable. Or a bridge card letting only 1 card attack a turn cause only 1 person can cross a bridge at a time. I love that idea. He got it from D&D. I see it every now and then each set.
Another core idea for him was comedy. That's why its so incorporated into flavor texts and un-sets.
MH1-2-3 are the bottom-up sets. The common and uncommon are there for the draft evironment with strong themes on pairs, shards and wedges.
Also they are Time Spiral block with the fat trimmed.
With power creep, you could call them power bottom-up.
Some bottom-up ideas off the cuff: exile zone matters, blinking/ETB matters, death matters, mana value matters, battles matter…
As with all things: Varity is the spice of life! Neither design mythos is better than the other, If there is too much top-down, we'll long for new ideas. too much bottom-up, and we'll dream about what-ifs. Be Creative, but also its fun to play pretend too.
I think you nailed it with as few of words as possible.
I do have this kind of impression of wotc (hasbro) 'cashing out' Making more product with less effort for higher prices and top down just lends itself to that better. That being said it gives me hope one day the effects of this will push the company to feel pressured into the ultimate hail mary: ADD PURPLE
They already added purple, as "deliberate colourlessness", which is now the main theme of MH3.
ive watched a couple of your videos now and i wanna tell you youre awesome! I like the way that you talk! i love that you talk scientifically without stretching the video out. really great video essays with a nice format and very likeable delivery. only con is your editing, as i sometimes wondered why you showed a specific card when you were talking about something at most loosely connected to it. thanks for your work, have a great one! and when you read this, you probably have 30k subs, so congrats!
Glad to have you back. Always a joy of my day to see your videos
I appreciate that!
13:35 Strixhaven excluded, I hope! 😂
hey now, get that Stryxhaven slander outta here XD
I think you're right that the single block per plane really hurts bottom up design since you just don't have enough space to really explore a world and help players know about it. Ikoria is a really good example of this, I can't say most players really understand all of how the world works beyond big monsters. And even top down doesn't quite work if the world works differently than expected or pulls from lore that people outside certain circles aren't familiar with, such as with Kaldheim.
But also I think there's potentially another reason we're seeing so much top down out of nowhere all at once, and that's because these sets are likely easier to design and able to be published with fewer man hours. When a lot of the work is done for you by concepts already existing in the public conciousness, then all you have to do is figure out cards to match and send it off. And with Hasboro putting more and more demands on Wizards to ship more products and more sets and to do it with fewer employees, you have to cut corners wherever you can. Bottom up takes more time and work, and it's time they just don't have.
Awesome, a fresh video! I have seen several discussions of top-down and bottom-up design in writing and tabletop RPG mechanics. On forums, not so much TH-cam. So this is another strong entry, a useful tool for any artist.
Such a pleasure to watch a new video, Dice :) you've been missed.
I absolutely love how Rosewater designs with resonance in mind - and I must say, up until 15mins ago, I'd die on the hill that top down design is the best. But you did introduce me to a couple of new ideas, I must ponder upon this.
I just with Hasbro would burn 🥲
I am still a top down fanboy, but a reliance on it can dampen what makes the game great in the first place
This video essay was outstanding! Going into this, I was totally set on top down, but you've really helped me appreciate the original charm that mtg has lost by abandoning top up design.
I wonder if the Universes Beyond sets can really work in the future. Like, the first one were really successful but they were also the most likely to succeed. Off course MtG players will be excited for D&D, LotR or Doctor Who. But what can come next ?
Everything every nerd has ever dreamt of… Marvel, DC, Star Wars, TNMT, Game of Thrones, Dark Souls, The Witcher… the list goes on with every popular IP Hasbro thinks it can milk the cow.
This is a great video, a lot of food for thought about what MTG has become these last years
This perfectly articulates my problems with modern magic. Great video.
Really interesting video, personnally i'm more a Yu gi oh player than a MTG one, and the top-down vs bottom-up problem is something that we have too.
But the issue with both are quite different. Yu gi oh working more on "archetypes" than sets, but the same concept can be applied as well.
But instead of lacking surprise and relying too much on comfort, Top-Down design in y gi oh struggles more on a practical way... they often sucks a lot.
For exemple, one of the recent Top Down archetype we had was Ashened. Thoses are really stylish card that are references of Darksouls games. The mechanics of the cards revolve around a big dragon to kill and the city who were burned by this dragon. That's a super cool design, but it doesn't keep up with the rest of the game.
On the other hand, we have bottom up cards who explore more and more absurd combo, allowing more and more powerfull deck. Tearlament and Kashtira are 2 really good archetype, created for exploiting brokens mechanics (mill for tearlaments, et banishment (exile) for kashitra).
So to sum up, a flaw of Top-Down design is that it's harder to make a meta relevant card.
I honestly prefer top down design as a fellow lover of the color pie, In new sets I always want to see how colors manifest in different environments and I think mechanics should be fun but reflect the lore.
Bottom up feels to to me like how some cartoons get their plot decided by the toy company
Love how much Strixhaven is showcased in the video as while it is one of the more underrated set, it is extremely relevant to this topic. STX being a bottom up set while still have such a good top down flavor that people assume it’s top down was truly remarkable
Though I like top-down design in general, my issue with a lot of the more modern offerings is that they lack the "surprise" pillar. Older top-down sets, like original Innistrad and Theros, worked because they felt like they were their own worlds, ones which happened to be inspired by a real-world source. They looked at the atmosphere built by those sources and created something of their own to match, with the occasional Civilised Scholar or Rescue From the Underworld for spice. New top-down worlds, on the other hand, feel like little more than a shallow collection of references, like the top-down design is more about reminding us of other things that exist, rather than building something of their own. They're not "Magic's unique spin on X", they're "Straight up X, but with the Magic logo stamped on it".
Battles were such a cool idea of a card with so much room for potential in the mini race for counters or forcing bad plays from your opponent, but even in Standard their only ever used for their front face then aptly forgotten about or blinked with no regard for the face down.
Craft with ____ was another 2 faced system which hardly ever sees the 2nd side. It was a brilliant idea to have slow-burn value engines (like flashback) that provided advantages, then forced interaction through high-mana exchanges and won trough grind and card advantage. Turns out the best way to print artefact synergy is just have one that prints win cons for 3 mana.
Descend had extremely steep requirements that couldn't be reasonably achieved in any low power format.
Kellan the Kid would've been an objectively more interesting card in WoE, Innestrad or Kaldheim
MoM praetors feel so weak for no reason. Their not even that bad they just FEEL bad. The Dominus cards feel way better to play and they still feel ass (Tekuthal is pre good tho).
The fact that Craft and Prototype weren't expanded more on is a genuine tragedy.
Proliferate should and can be far more interesting than poison counters.
No Rango references in Thunder Junction. Like who tf wouldn't play Rattlesnake Jake (or a reference like card).
That's all i really got.
I typically do top down, and always seem to struggle doing that, and they almost always lead to being boring in comparison to my top down cards. But now that I've seen this it kinda explains why that. I'm thinking maybe doing bottom up may be worth looking into more and maybe trying a little mix of both.
I kind of like bottom up themed cards over top to bottom. It feels like they actually put work into the cards. And it feels more creative from a story/lore perspective.
Whereas top to bottom almost feels lazy in a way. Just taking preexisting things and calling it a day. Especially with all the dreaded universes beyond crap they keep throwing out.
"We have rhystic study at home"
Jk i lovd this video
Something that really ought to be said is a lot of the older more beloved top down sets are also bottom up sets! Innistrad begins as gothic horror then expands into a graveyard set. Theros begins as a Greek myth set then expands into an enchantment set. A major issue with a lot of the new top down sets is they aren’t mechanically cohesive. They’re just collections of mechanics that grope at the set theme. This is obvious when looking at Murders at Karlov Manor.
I really want WOTC to start polishing some of these tools, make them evergreen like Cycling could be in every set.
Honestly, not a great fan of the current direction of the game, in both set design and the ever increasing power creep. On the design, the latest sets feel shallow, too much focused on the flavor. And then there's the cards that keep stronger and stronger.
The new cards being, most often than not, better versions of existing cards, make the previous ones irrelevant. For example: Force of Will, a powerful counterspell that could save you even when you ran out of mana, it was strong but unique. Now we have so many new free counterspells that I don't even how many of them are out there at this point.
My guess is that this is due to the increase of popularity of the Commander format. Because it's a non-rotating format, players feel less urgency to invest in new cards that come out from Standard. But if you print better versions of Commander staples, then players will feel more inclined in buying those, because otherwise, they will be left behind within their game groups.
I don't see this panorama changing any time soon. As long the Commander format leads sales, there's no reason for Wizards to change its strategy. But it will probably reach a point, where the same problems that plagued Standard, the need to keep up with an ever changing format, will start affecting Commander. Maybe then, we'll see some change.
To me, top design is more interesting up front but loses interest over time. Bottom up is the opposite, it’s less interesting until you play it more and start to appreciate the design qualities from playing.
Top down will get people to buys sets up front but will encourage fatigue over time, this is why I think Magic is so bipolar with player interest now. You have a real fast cycle of player fatigue, when the only thing interesting about the set is the flavor.
I think Magic would benefit best from oscillating between top-down and bottom-up, if nothing else than to avoid stagnation and keep drumming up interest. I'm, personally, a sucker for top-down design, as I'm a writer and world-builder at my core. However, with WotC's shenanigans lately, I'm worried about Universes Beyond being their foot in the door for just taking every remotely "nerdy" IP and turning it into "Ooh look, now it's Magic cards!" and that being their new m.o.
I LOVE Bloomburrow as a top-down set because it's such a fun idea where the theme and the mechanics synergize so well and it's so approachable even for folks who are newer to Magic. (And also it's not just Doctor Who but MtG.)
I just really hope that they don't make turning other IPs into sets their new normal. (Although I would kill a man for a Soulsborne set and I'm not kidding.)
i got into mtg almost exactly a year ago, a major help in doing that was rhystic stydies video on phyrexia...
If you're gonna look at Universes Beyond and not just look at standard sets, I feel like you can't leave out Modern Horizons which is *extremely* bottom up in its approach.
As a newer person to magic, I'm honestly not understanding why people complain about top-down and universes beyond. Seeing a mtg interpretation of a piece of media is honestly more interesting than an original plane. Kamigawa, or Doctor Who is infinitely more interesting than ravnica
In my humble opinion, the main issue is what kind of new, and by new I mean very new mechanics could be solid enough to be the backbone of a new MTG set? I know everyone hated it but mutate was IMO a great concept and a very bottom to top one in the world of Ikoria, same thing for Adventures in Throne of Eldraine or the way they approached Zendikar Rising. Pathways, DFCs, not only they are IMO mechanically one of best ideas in the entire life of magic, but they also suit that very changing universe extremely well. And yeah as someone who drafted/ played a lot of constructed games during 2020-2021 I know Mutate and the OP adventures cards lead to many issues- Escape slaps BTW, certainly not my Kroxa fan take- why am I coughing so hard suddenly?- .
But my last point is that, just because you chose to immerse the player into a very specific or even somewhat specific world, your mechanics should not necessarily surprise like no one. Even if you managed to get a great limited set like Thunder Junction.
Let's have some hope for Bloomburrow. So glad to see you back sir, cheers
I think it would be cool if they did the same thing they did with Strixhaven ("let's reimagine these color pairings in a way completely different from what Ravnica did") but for allied color pairs
Another idea could be "exile matters" with stuff like ingest or the thing that Mairsil the Pretender does
I liked the analysis. However, I think there a group of bottom up sets being ignored. The Modern Horizons sets. MH3 builds the White, Black, and Green archetypes around modified. Bringing the Adapt mechanic into Black and adding offensive Bestow cards with Trickster's Elk. Bottom up has a strong bastion of support in Modern Horizons. Additionally, Modern Horizons 2 was the best selling set prior to Lord of the Rings so I think Wizards should be able to see bottom up sells as well.
Top down design is good so more card do things that make sense for whats being presented. The problem is how we've gone from a fair 2 for 2/2 bear to that might have haste or trample to a 2 drop that can utterly warp the game around itself.
I have a slight caveat about top-down design, comfort and surprise: yes, what you say holds true in most sets, but only because most top-down sets are, in a way, subversions.
They are "X but in Magic", they aren't standalone. They rely so much on resonance because because the comparison with the expected is meant to be a core part of the appeal.
They could totally do a top-down set that doesn't rely on that, that introduces us to a brand new world with no clear parallels, with its own brand new worldbuilding that doesn't rely on gimmicks.
Why don't they do that? Because it takes more time, both to create the sets and to introduce the players to the worlds. They are also not as easy to market because they can't be as easily summarised. Their current business model simply doesn't allow for original top-down design, only referential top-down.
I am wondering if you can do a mostly top down design but with a card or two of bottom up design when needed. It was a wild thought. It is a bit a curiosity to me.
Magic has never been better IMO:
D&D and LOTR magic? HELL YES
As for someone that entirely play in block based cube drafting gameplay, it's 11/10
Really, truly, it feels so good to move away from constructed (commander included) entirely.
If a card game has all decks with the same cards in it. A top-down approach could be exclusively used. The design of choice for frame, icon, and text placement could, then be changed for each deck. This is a departure from TCG design, because the mechanics vary to much.
If the arrangement of this information varies to much from deck to deck. It will become more difficult for players to think of which card in their deck it represents. The consistency of the frame, icon, and text placement draw their eyes to familiar places on those cards.
It feels like the game is evolving, mabye for better mabye not but it's changing. I feel like now it's good there expanding their player base I hope in a few years after the universe beyond sets bring in more players we can come back to the bottom up desgin again. Magics entering a new cycle
thank you for this video. we could talk all day of what sets are top-down and what sets are bottom-up, but at the end of the day... mtg main sets are dangerously approaching un-sets, there's way too many goofy cards, way too many jokes... i get that not everything has to be dark and grim like the phyrexian war sets, but designing entire new planes around gimmicky and wacky concepts is a bit too much imho
But heres a question; what is the flavor in service of? The story feels like they just randomly drop whatever magic characters in it nowadays, instead of building around what the characters would actually do. The stories feel like they are playing with dolls, and the sets feel no different due to it.
Top-down design relying on established ideas and comfort among the players can also lead to creative laziness. For me, the best example or worst offender in this regard (depending on one's perception) is the recent takeover of Universes Beyond, which is essentially turn forcing a usually entirely disconnected property into the framework MtG cards and call it a day when it comes to create a cohesive in-game universe (regardless of the degree of success of those sets). UB that by its own nature, while it is an easy way to cater to the fandoms of those IP, may also alienate players unfamiliar with those non-MtG series, to whom the contextless MCU-like reference ("Look! There's X! We know you like X!") cannot speak.
What music did you use for the video? I really like some of them
What tires me most is the frequency and the amount of cards. I mean, I had fun with LotR and D&D sets because I'm a fan of both, and generally don't really care too much about the "quality" of a set because there's always something fun and new.
But I just can't keep up with it anymore. Why not just release one big set a year and supplement it with some smaller themed expansions that (re)introduce unique mechanics? That used to work.
Bloomburrow was the best set of the last 6 years. All it really affirmed to me was that *Magic's original recurring characters suck ass. I do not give a shit about Jace, or Chandra, or Kellen, or any of the fucking planeswalkers or overarching bad guys.*
The problem isn't top down design, the problem is combining top down design with recurring characters which reduce the top down worlds to "old characters in new themed outfits". Bloomburrow was top down, but the absence of recurring interplanar characters meant it was just a fun fully realized world.
For some strange reason I wanted to hear the end of that Gordon Ramsey joke. A small detail in the production I know. But please let us hear the punchline
The state of magic design is crazy. I am not sure if top down is the problem as much as the reasons for it. I think either is suitable, but both can be screwed up big time
I love how magic has moved away from mechanical sets.
Sadly even Strixhaven, one of the more bottom up sets, was 100% trying to lean on Harry Potter
WOTC has proven its incompetence when it comes to both specific and wholistic design time and time again. The game sold its integrity for daddy Hasbro’s bottom line a long time ago and stable, sustainable design was Magic’s first victim.
Universe beyond gordon ramsie would just have an effect of exiling anyone the ef from his kitchen.
How is Strixhaven "bottom-up" when it feels and looks like a generic Harry Potter set? :^) My favorite sets are Shards of Alara, Khans of Tarkir, Shadowmoor, and Ixalan. I loved the entirety of the Alara, Lorwyn, Ixalan series, whereas I feel that Dragons of Tarkir ruined Tarkir... Spice8Rack has a perfect video about it.
I would assume Alara and Tarkir are bottom-up as their mechanics are super cool, and I've never seen anything like their artwork and worldbuilding... despite Tarkir being very much orientalism at face-value it doesn't seem to have any real-world connotations? Orientalism being a fantasy itself. Hmm and Naya has a few Mayan-esc motifs...
But I would say Lorwyn and Ixalan are very much top-down, as they are obviously analogies to European fairy-tales and the Spanish conquest of South America and fantasies about El-Dorado?
I guess I'm kinda struggling to tell the difference between top-down and bottom-up to really have an opinion on which is better... but I strongly dislike Universes Beyond, even if I love something like Lord of the Rings I do not want LotR in my Magic game, I would rather have some form of original parody than another IP much like Innistrad.
Lorwyn is bottom up. It's not based on "European fairytales", Eldraine is. Lorwyn is based on "tribal set".
@@Ninjamanhammer Lorwyn is obviously European folklore? Elves, Treants, "Hobbits", Merfolk, Giants, Faires? There's even other references to mythological creatures like the Nucklavee, Puca, Selkies, Dwarves, Wurms, Boggarts, Spriggans, Barghest, Trolls, Korrigans... just off the top of my head and probably dozens more? Hags? Dolmens?
Eldraine is more like exclusive to only Arthurian legends...
Because bottom-up doesn't mean flavorless, in the same way that top-down doesn't mean mechanically incohesive.They both describe the things that a card or set's first concept comes from, but a good design refines both by the end.
Strixhaven began design as a set about instants and sorceries, a mechanical idea that hadn't been applied to a set before, and as it was made, a flavor theme was found to fit resonantly with the mechanical theme. The mechanics can even be sorted into being developed before the school theme (Magecraft, MDFC spells) and after the school theme (Learn & Lesson). Also, marketing especially likes to lean on the flavor of sets more than the mechanics, which leads to it being the first impression of a new plane, regardless of the base design principle.
In a similar way to Strixhaven been a set with well-known flavor despite being top-down, Theros has a very famous mechanical theme of enchantments matters while being a top-down set. Theors can't be considered fake top-down because some people remember as the set with constellation and bestow and enchantment creatures, and likewise, you can't consider Strixhaven to be fake bottom-up because you personally remember it as a magical school.
@@DigitalinDaniel I think what's throwing you off is that for bottom up sets they will often grab a theme that is closely resonant. Lowrin started off as a tribal first set (that's why there are no humans, the higher ups were squeamish about humans as a creature type until Mark forced the issue with Innistrad) and then they grabbed fairy tale creatures because it allowed them to explore the idea. Notice how many creature types you listed off. that's because they were playing with the idea of caring about creature types. Changling only exists because they needed more creature type cards than they had card slots.
but if you didn't know that, you might easily miss that fact. Ideally, the two ideas should work in harmony. Innistrad was beloved not just because it was a gothic horror set, but because the mechanics were so evocative.
Eldraine is how disney would recreate old fairy tales in their movies.
Lorwyn is how countryside europeans could have seen the world 300-700 years ago. elves (nobles) on high horses, sneaky burglars and beggars, talkin trees and bees.
It's true. Bottom up design is a lot of work. And you don't have a guarantee of returns. But don't worry, there's a way to do less work and exploit people's preferences and... still not guarantee returns.
I like some of the ideas of top down sets. However I think their are not creating new planes, expanding it, just doing the most obvious and going to the next. Capenna, Kaldheim and Strix Haven could have so much more.
I encourage you all:
*PROXY BOI SUMMER*
MaRo claiming that Kamigawi was "their first time doing this type of top down design" is hilarious, given that Arabian Nights was released in 1993.
🤡
I have been wanting to start my on youtube channel where I do soli role playing using a lot of the story telling stuff of mtg. I was just going to let it be a kind of fanfiction with stuff like the color pie and realms of my own.
I say that because mtg made more than a card game. Theur archetypes are pure psychology somehow. Plus their world building cannot just apply to rpg or games n general but story. It can be used to actually aid a writer. If expanded upon it could be good role play. Also build characters and worlds. Heck it can make actual places to visit. Not just natural but cities.
Yeah they started out making a card game. It may be and can be so much more in the realm of fiction and else where.
I have not started the channel. My bipolar made doing my last one impossible. I got realm lore built though.
In my opinion, the flavour of the set falls apart when the comfort factor of the audience is set too high, and the imagined average person for this is factor has too narrow or limited scope for imaginative or creative ideas.
The original Kamigawa block was a failure because their audience couldn't relate as closely to it?
I bounced hard off Wilds of Eldraine because it was a neo-Disney, fairy tale schlock, now with new and improved Kellan.
A return to Lorwyn for more Fae and unsettling faerie tale design works better for MTG. Even Thrones of Eldraine wasn't as saccharine in the portrayals of well know genre tropes.
Honestly I think if old kamigaws came out now people would appreciate the flavour of it a bit more. I definitely agree with your first point, too much comfort is kinda boring really
They are using top down design the way old theaters used masks. They used certain mask for certain things. To convey info quickly. Just for a different reason.
I don’t like hasbro
Edit: and I would say they are generally equally good, but it is fun to have both
There's nothing I dislike more than listening to rosewater's voice.. though that glitch transition noise is also kind of annoying.
Otherwise, good video.
So technically they had to dumb down Kamigawa for the masses the second time around.
Interesting take but I think your approach is wrong, you seem to think top and down design are mutually exclusive, that you do one at the expense of the the other one, and that is not it, both of them are present at all times, and it just take a lot of skill to keep them balanced and in check. Magic's R&D has become so good that the have been using the top elements of design as just another tool for every new set instead of a gimmick every once in a while, notice how you didn't mention DMU, BRO, MOM or ONE as top down design but they are, it is just that the design is Magic's own story, so it doesn't feel like they are doing a "theme". You mentioned that maybe there is no more innovation for bottom design, but there is, see energy, they tried it, it was a bit clunky and I can bet you in the next 5 years we will see a return to kaladesh with a new and more polished approach to energy (just like they managed to bring phyrexian mana back to standard), we just had a battles and they will show up again in different forms, the very recent "crimes" tapped into a new space for design that can be expanded in the future. And sure these things might not capture your attention the way the did a decade ago, but try to talk to someone that just discovered Magic recently, it is as fantastic to them as it was for you back then. You see, Magic is not dying, magic is not worst than it was back in the day, Magic is just growing up, same as you, and you might just not end up in the same place, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Top down is being enforced because MTG is tanking in sales. They've already begun stripping it down so they only have a skeleton crew.
Desin-ging noodles
so they got lazy got you
This video popping up made me want to watch MTG design theory videos. Not this one however, it's like you've gone out of your way to make it pretentious and boring.
I mean I have built a sizable following being pretentious and boring, but hey I'm sure Mr. Beast has a new video out you could watch.
🤦🏽♀️ Thunder Junction is a slapped together set using wutevr card art they had laying around. Half the cards don't even fit in the set's themes. Where did all those corpses come from that got turned into zombies on a plane that has never had any inhabitants? Y is there a card depicting dinosaurs coming out the vault even tho that didn't happen in the story. Thunder Junction has that Top Down idea on paper but not in practice. It was a garbage set with garbage thematics.
Top down desg8n is a good thing if executed properly but I fear that more n more they r using it as a crutch to make garbage sets. I miss when we had blocks
MARO's love for bad puns does not make good top down design.
Top down is good but they're bad at doing it. They go halfway and make it the worst of both worlds. The stats and the mechanics don't match the flavor, even when they start with the flavor.
Hot take: What MTG has been doing in recent years isn't Top Down design, it's lazy, derivative pop culture reference that honestly show a lack of creativity and trust in their own original vision.
With that current philosophy they would have never designed the most iconic elements of MTG like the Eldrazi, Mirodin, the Phyrexian, the Slivers or the Planeswalkers.
Once upon a time MTG could come up with its own flavor to build its top down design, but not anymore. The theme sets are probably the most obviously example of that and how it totally cheapen the MTG world, turning it into a big joke full of lazy and often eye rolling attempt at quirky references.
"BUT LOOK! WOULD'NT IT BE FUNNY IF EVERYONE HAD A DETECTIVE HAT? HOW ABOUT A COWBOY HAT?! ISN'T IT FUNNY?!"
No, it's really not, and I suspect the whole point of these sets is to prepare the game to host more Universe Beyond (Now that we got a detective and cowboy set, we can easily plug any IP of thos types in the game)
Hehehe
"Magic brought me in because of its originality of ideas and strong gameplay. But when what it becomes is just a mirror rather than a new concept, then perhaps a focus on Top-Down can pull us away from what made us fall in love with this game in the first place." Excellent closing lines. Excellent video. I fear for Magics future. I knew something was up when it became easier and more common to forget the names of sets in favor of their elevator pitch labels. "The fairy tale set," "the werewolf set," "the art deco set."
That's a great point. I'm not sure when exactly it happened, but there was definitely a switch from thinking of sets in terms of their MTG lore names to thinking of them in terms of their taglines.
Very well-said. I’d been struggling to understand my disconnect with the more recent sets, but you nailed it.
I litterally dont remember the cowboy sets name and it was mentioned in the video i JUST WATCHED.
And let's not forget "the set based that videogames that kids love nowadays even though I've never heard of it", which is something that can put some older players in a somewhat awkward position.
First things first: I didn't realize you were gone for two whole months because I've been binging your past videos to get story ideas. Felt like there was always a new idea. Time flies when you're having fun
Secondly: I feel like some of the most unique set/planes are bottom up. Take my personal favorite, Alara. Similar to Ravnica, it was designed from the bottom-up to be a faction plane. Since there was no strong starting ground, no established reference, they had to make one (5) plane(s) that all felt mechanically and thematically unique. And they succeded.
However, when we return to Alara (AND WE'D BETTER) it can allow for top-down design to flourish, because we know what the plane is like, just like we know what Gothic Horror is, what Greek Mythology is, what Westerns are, we know what Alara is. Familiarity doesn't mean you can't make a new concept
Also, personally I feel like the two set block was the best way to go. Set one introduces the setting and main players and a bit of the story, and after you've gotten to really understand the plane the second set really ramps up the story. That was a big change but honestly a great one.
Great video as always Dice!
I see your point about questioning “where else can magic go mechanically?” but I’m hoping there will be another set that twists the boundaries of what we expect in a color combo mechanically.
I think strixhaven was the most recent set in my mind that executed this well.
Where we can explore what were sideline synergies and make them the main synergy.
As the song goes: top-down, bottom-up, that's the way we like to...design.
Fun video. I think the best example of resonance is just the basic color design. Each color is filled with creatures and concepts that reflects it's core identity. Stuff like mountain goats living in the mountains and skeletons being associated with evil and death. The early sets were all basically built top down (or more likely from the middle). It would be interesting to identify where the switch to bottom up became prevalent. Was it in tempest? I remember the game changing A LOT around that time. It's also very interesting to see them identify Kamigawa as their first top down set.
IMO we're at a point in the games life where top down design makes sense. The rise of commander, and the vast catalogue of cards. A lot of commander players like strongly themed cards. In addition the sheer volume of cards available means that you're often choosing between 5 or 6 almost identical options. Good points throughout.
As someone who designs almost purely from the top down. I didn't even see some of the flaws until i saw this video. But here is my take.
While flavour first is something i will always see as best. Much like any story there does need to be shifts, changes and new themes. As you said, surprises in what can be told. If you ask me, I think WOTC is leaning too much into comfort. Maybe learning the wrong lesson from Kamigawa and not trying anything new. For fear of new things lead to a failed set.
Well said!
I think there's a danger in presenting this as top-down vs bottom-up. A good set needs to think carefully in both directions. A pure top-down set makes something fun to collect but boring to play, with disjointed mechanics, limited synergies and a lot of "ooh member chewbacca?" cards. A pure bottom-up set can end up having an excellent mechanical experience, but minimal emotional investment and desire to play the set. Thunder Junction is thematically cool but mechanically horrible. Zendikar post-Eldrazi was mechanically cool, but had no thematic concepts that excited me. What made Return to Ravnica particularly work so well was that it was a bottom-up block but with strong top-down themes informing where mechanics were placed and what it felt like to use them. For example, Overload is a very fun mechanic, but it kind of feels out of place on cards that aren't Izzet-themed, because Ravnica has a great top-down layer that gave these mechanics strong flavour.
They are also not giving writers and designers time to set-up expectations before subverting them. The pace is just too fast, we simply don't have time to care.
One thing I think is interesting is how top down design is teally good at creating new unique mechanical gameplay, but bottom up is really good at creating unique and fun story and flavor. I will say, the complexity of card design these days I think may also be a result, or at least related to, the increase in top down design.
MaRo seems to have an extremely shallow understanding of what good "top-down" design is. Or maybe of what good flavor is. The most important thing is not meeting the audience where they are with all the disparate references to pop culture. The most important thing is to have non-contradictory flavor. Give the audience the ability to explore and attach themselves to the lore - as much as they are willing to themselves. Deep and non-contradictory flavor.
WotC fails at this again and again in recent years, because they set their priorities wrong.
Btw, Kamigawa was pretty flavorful, I disagree with Mark (and probably you) again here. The new Kamigawa is much more quirky than the old one.
Great video! I’ve always heard the developers talk about “bottom up” sets but, as a new player, I haven’t seen any of them before.
I couldn’t imagine any recent set that wasn’t a top down, theme first kind of set.
And now I know why. Because they just simply haven’t done one in a while.
Last one I can think of was Tarkir and even that's a stretch
@@williamdrum9899 Not counting returns, the last one was New Capenna which iirc began as a 3 color set with the mafia flavor coming later and before that was strixhaven beginning as an instant/sorceries matter set. Counting returns, the last one was somewhere in the dominaria united to all will be one range (returns in general and those sets in particular are harder to categorize)
@@williamdrum9899 I think Tarkir block counts. It was made primarily to explore a unique block structure style, as well as the Khans of Tarkir being very much built to explore what the wedges, in the same way Ravnica the two color pairs and Alara the shards.
I believe Ixalan might have been bottom up as the focus was tribal mechanics, primarily.
I feel like bottom up is where magic really shines and is the most "magic".
And tbh more topdown is probably why sets arent blocks anymore, as topdown sets to me atleast feels waaay less impactful after the first one. Sure, its awesome to see more if you really like it is funky.
Now, when your spending a year exploring all the ways artifacts can be used in each color, while giving hate and such is a lot more interesting than the 13th zombie.
I think honestly thats something magic is gonna have to grapple with soon, and already is with all the extra print sheets. Since the 2nd time around and if you dont love the aesthetic, then the set just hits way less strong.
Like I always love looking at Ice Age or other really dope old sets with strong thematic ties because it feels like theres always a card that looks super fun to play.
Whereas like mounts for instance, are kinda cool. But at the same time, they feel super boring and not something ima force into decks just cuz I wanna play em or going to build a deck just to use em.
Not always true, sometimes it makes me wanna build shit, like spirits from kamigawa, as spiritshift just reads pretty fun. But also im a weeb whos watched or read thousands of titles from asia so I might get more specifically from that, then even fairy tales or cowboys.
I think the reason top-down themes feel like they don't work as blocks is because blocks require an ascending narrative where each set builds on both the mechanics and the themes of the previous set. But when you're doing a top-down set, you kind of want all of the themes to be fully explored the first time you do it, because otherwise the first set feels hollow, and then you don't have anything new in reserve for the later sets, you can only do more of what you've already done. Like, imagine if you were making a "Star Wars" top-down block. If you wanted a block story to it, you couldn't really have your Jedi analogue until set 3.
MTG is PURELY Lucky* that their top down / bottom up actually physically matches the card face.
Rosewater couldn't have used that metaphor when describing the actual card with practically any other example of these design philosophies, and I find that hilarious.
It really is a force of nature, huh.
Why is it lucky
@@alpacaofthemountain8760 Please read literally the entire rest of the comment past the first four words which goes on to explicitly explain my opinion in detail.
@@alpacaofthemountain8760 Because "top down", and "bottom up" design exists outside of magic the gathering. It just happened to align with the physical appearance of the cards.
It's interesting because the thing you point out that rosewater criticized kamigawa for is the reason I love the old block and NEO felt really flat to me.
Most of the contemporary pop culture notes of Japan do nothing for me. I live in Tokyo and the only reason I have to go to Akiba is because of tokyoMTG - meanwhile I'll travel across the country to visit a shrine.
Above all this stuff is so personal: my second favourite set is Lorwynn and that's because I'm Cornish so I GET the what they're going for.
In terms of top down design in recent sets, I genuinely believe the Doctor Who one was an amazing example of both flavor and actual mechanical design.
The set itself for the most part, while designed top down for flavor, mechanically feels bottom up. The decks and their new cards greatly expanded upon and inovated preexisting concepts in a unique, fun, and interesting way. Each decks (asside from the villain one) put emphasis on not just flavor but greatly expanding off of a preexisting mechanic. You have a deck with new cards dedicated to the mechanics of casting from exile, a deck centered around expanding on the historic cqrd mechanic, and (most significantly) a deck expanding immensely upon the the fairly forgotten suspend mechanic.
The time counter cards in particular have opened up very creative and unique ways to play around with suspend as a mechanic that simply did not exist before. It feels like something out of a bottom up set despite the clearly heavy top down flavor of many cards.
These decks suceeded immensely in balancing both sides of design incredibly well, and the fact its from universes beyond is kinda crazy.
You're exactly right in that there is no more real "surprise"... However, I've seen snippets of different spins on that concept.
An example I think of is Captain N'ghathrod. Mill isn't necessarily good in Commander, but as an alternate wincon? As another resource? Sure. With the Fallout decks, they all had their archetypes, but they all seemed to have something of a Voltron subtheme present, and I think *that's* where we need to go - It's less about the individual card, and more about the synergies with other cards, new and old. I love finding new homes for old goodies. I love the idea of taking the bones of a several-years-old deck and breathing new life in to it with a grip of new cards that reimagine the deck.