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With Dominaria United right around the corner, we spoke to Magic The Gathering Senior Game Designer Ethan Fleischer about the process of returning to one of MtG’s most iconic planes for its 30th anniversary.
After all, it’s not like the plane has remained untouched in 3 decades- from 2018’s revisit to Dominaria to the success of revisits to other planes like Innistrad, there’s a lot of history to build on with Magic: The Gathering’s return to Dominaria, just like the future direction of the game itself.
From the return of Phyrexian shenanigans to how they plan to develop the rest of the sets in the story arc, Ethan painted a picture of confidence in the iconic card game as it navigates such a huge milestone.
Dominaria’s obviously a big name to return to for MTG’s anniversary, could you share about some of the pressure that came with designing a new set for such a popular location?
Ethan: The 2018 Dominaria set was a huge success. Following up such a popular set can be a bit intimidating. I ask myself, can we measure up to that with a sequel. Fortunately, the design and worldbuilding teams were brimming over with ideas for cards. Also, Dominaria is such a huge and deep setting that we could focus on mechanics and factions that would set important parts of the story as we continue along this year’s story arc.
I’ve seen a lot of excitement for the “Defiler Of” creatures, especially since they seem to incorporate the Phyrexian mana system. Could you talk a bit about those please?
Ethan: We often create what are called “cycles” of cards, five cards, one of each color, with similar mechanics to unite them conceptually. It’s important to design cards for all types of players. The Defiler cycle is designed primarily for “Spike” (we use nicknames for psychographic profiles for different players’ motivations). Spikes enjoy the sort of resource conversion decisions that mechanics like Phyrexian mana and the Defilers’ mechanic call for.
Every set comes with its own key mechanics, what mechanics are the team most excited for players to use in Dominaria United?
Ethan: The mechanic that was the hardest to develop was the Read Ahead keyword that appears on Dominaria United’s Saga cards. Normally, Sagas begin on Chapter I and process linearly, turn by turn. The Read Ahead mechanic allows you to skip past Chapters that aren’t tactically useful and start on a later Chapter instead. This opens up a lot of interest decisions for players and makes the Sagas play out differently from game to game. It was a big challenge for the design team to make abilities for the Sagas that players would sometimes want to use, but not always. I’m very excited how players play with these cards once Dominaria United is released!
Considering how many of the next sets are going to be following this Dominaria/Phyrexian arc, are the team monitoring player feedback to improve the next sets too?
Ethan: Absolutely. Every set is, in some sense, an experiment, so it’s important for us to collect data to determine our results. We conduct surveys, monitor play rates, discuss our sets with players, and read articles and social media to find out what player’s think about the set, and how they use the cards. Due to the long development cycle of a Magic set, it will usually be a couple of years before any major changes can be enacted in response to players’ feedback.
It looks like there’s a lot to look forward to for fans of Magic: The Gathering ahead of the release of Dominaria United next week. Whether you’re a Phyrexian fanboy eager to see your life total as just a reserve of free mana or fan of the legendary heroes coming to the set, there’ll be plenty to look forward to when the set releases on September 9th.
