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Mark Rosewater (Maro) just published an article on the official MTG website

In "The Big Picture", he shares a few more thoughts on MTG's design and challenges

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He prefaces the text by recognizing that "Magic is not a single game but rather a game system that shares a set of rules and game components"

He says that there are many ways to play Magic, and their main objective is to "make that game system as robust as possible so that each player can play the game in the manner they choose"

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Maro points out 4 main challenges that they need to be careful with during game design

These are ->

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The Priority Problem

Every player has different priorities and requests, so it is hard for Wizards to meet all of them. "While each player has their own priority and is only asking for one or two things, we have millions of players who each have their own priority and are asking for their own things"

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The Wasteful Problem

Depending on a player's priority and desires, some products, mechanics or themes may feel like a waste to them. For example, Maro says that many players were frustrated with Unsets because it didn't meet their priorities

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The Contamination Problem

Maro says players get upset when they introduce something that they think has no place in the game. In Eternal Formats, "this gets even more invasive, because now that thing they don't think has a place in the game is part of their format. Players can't control what their opponents play, so now there's a threat of that thing contaminating their format"

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The Evolution Problem

"Whenever we introduce a new component to the game that wasn't there before, there are players upset that the game is changing away from what they love. This is true of any new element."

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Maro also affirms that "Magic needs to evolve" to live and that "the audience wants different things"

He also discusses briefly what they need to do to keep the game fun for players. For more information, check out the original article!

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