Magic: the Gathering (MTG) had just returned to Ravnica on February 9 for Murders at Karlov Manor, an expansion themed around solving murder mysteries and engaging in fantasy detective fiction.

How did the expansion come about? We got an opportunity to catch up with Mike Turian, Product Architect at Wizards of the Coast, about the fascinating inspirations behind the Murders at Karlov Manor expansion for MTG.

Murders at Karlov Manor take place in the sprawling cityscape of Ravnica, and with intriguing puzzles and cryptic clues to be collected, this is also the first expansion set to introduce Play Boosters, a new way to play and experience the card game.

Detective Fiction in MTG

The Murders at Karlov Manor expansion is themed around detectives, crimes, and solving mysteries. When it comes to designing the set, we were wondering if the designers have any specific “rules” that the card design has to follow. We were also curious if there were any interesting inspirations that the designers had when developing Murders at Karlov Manor.

To that, Mike Turian said “One of the great things about working on a fantasy card game is that we get to make up the rules! For Murders at Karlov Manor, we really wanted to hit on the murder mystery drama vibe. Another decision we needed to make was whether we wanted to introduce an all-new setting or bring back a beloved setting. As you can tell, we decided to combine the characters and story of Ravnica with the murder mystery tropes.”

When it comes to the gameplay, Mike noted that there were certainly some constraints when designing the “Disguise” mechanic. “If your opponent has less than four mana available, their Disguised creature will at best trade with your 2-toughness creature. This type of rule makes the guessing game around face-down creatures a little more manageable.”

Disguise and Cloak

In this expansion, there will be the new “Disguise” and “Cloak” mechanics that share many similarities with the old “Morph” and “Manifest” mechanics that many veteran MTG players may be familiar with. For the reason behind introducing these new mechanics rather than bringing back the old, Mike has this to say.

“There were a couple of factors that led us to introduce “Disguise” and “Cloak”, rather than stick with the “Morph” mechanic. From a gameplay perspective, “Morph”, having been introduced over 20 years ago, hasn’t kept up with the typical power level of a Magic card. So adding Ward 2 just helped make the new cards more in line with what you would expect to play for 3-mana in today’s Magic.”

“Additionally, from a flavour perspective, the word “Morph” didn’t really capture the vibe we were going for while “Cloak” and “Disguise” are so spot on. Lastly, we liked that Ward 2 offered an additional feel of actually being in disguise. There both is the mystery of what the creature is and it is a little bit harder to interact with before revealing itself.”

In terms of whether we would ever see old “Morph” and “Manifest” cards receiving newer iterations to gain the new “Disguise” and “Cloak” mechanics, Mike said that “I could see us creating new versions of favourite cards. As Magic moves forward, it is always a good opportunity for us to revisit cards and create newer, inspired versions of them.”

Solving the Mystery 

Another cool feature of the Murders at Karlov Manor set for MTG is the introduction of the new “Suspect”, “Collect Evidence”, and “Cases” mechanics, which are all interesting in their own way and fit into the theme of the expansion as they can feel like they tell a story when they all play together.

When it comes to the design process behind the new mechanics, Mike said “One thing that the team does with each set is figure out how to bring the setting and story of that set to life through the design process. For Murders at Karlov Manor, from very early on we knew that the setting would want to highlight classic murder mystery tropes. The ‘Cases’ design was brought in from previous attempts at the mechanic. The trick with Cases was to get the gameplay to the point where they really captured the feel of murder mystery and also were Magic cards you wanted to play!”

“The gameplay that took the most iteration in Murders at Karlov Manor was getting ‘Suspected’ right. Finding a way to navigate the design such that you both had reasons to give your creatures suspect counters, as well as your opponents, was quite challenging. ‘Menace’ was the key to providing a bonus to your creature that would make it worthwhile to suspect your own creatures. In the end, I think the team found a sweet spot that captures ‘suspected’ well.”

Clue Edition 

To celebrate the release of Murders at Karlov Manor, Wizards of the Coast is also working with Clue, or Cluedo, to launch the Ravnica: Clue Edition. Regarding how the collaboration came about, Mike mentioned that a game design team came up with the idea of combining the fun of Magic: the Gathering and Clue together in one game as many of them are fans of Clue while growing up.

“With Clue celebrating its 75th anniversary and with Magic creating a set based on a murder mystery, we worked with our corporate partners at Hasbro to see what the possibilities could be.”

“The main set of Murders at Karlov Manor already had five of the six weapons that are also in the Clue board game, so that made for a great starting point. Also, Legendary Creatures are a huge focus of the Magic’s favourite format, Commander. So we took those iconic Clue characters and used them as inspiration. Early on, we knew we would be placing the setting on Ravnica, and with ten guilds, we only needed to add the Secret Passage (into Dimir colors of course) and we could make a dual land for each room from the game.”

“Overall, I’m so impressed with what the team put together. When you play the game, it is fun and a great blend of gameplay between two amazing games!”

Murders at Karlov Manor 

As we approached the end of the interview, we asked Mike if there were any other exciting aspects of Murders at Karlov Manor that he would like to share with fans of MTG.

“Yes! With Murders at Karlov Manor focusing on the mystery aspect of Magic, one piece that the team set out to do was create unique puzzles for the different products of the set. This way our fans could go out and be a detective in the real world, taking different puzzles found in our Pre-release Kits, Bundles, Commander decks, and Play Boosters and solve them for themselves! All of the introductions to the puzzles and more information can be found at RavnicaDetectiveAgency.com. I’m proud of the team who brought all of the different aspects of this experience to life!”

Our thanks to Mike Turian for taking the time to chat with us about the interesting aspects of such fascinating set, as well as Wizards of the Coast for the opportunity to get into the nitty-gritty of it all.

The Murders at Karlov Manor expansion set is now available for Magic: The Gathering.