Q&A w/ Oktagon - June Edition (7/11/18)

Brigby

Hi Everyone,

The team has been very busy working on the Core Set 2019 being added in the upcoming 2.8 build, however they wanted to take some time to quickly answer a few questions.
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Will the next set be Core 2019? Can you tell us anything about it?
Yes. The next set will in fact be Core Set 2019. We can’t say much right now, but what we can say is that the Leader keyword will be in it.

Are there any plans to rebalance Planeswalkers?
Yes, there are. Now that we are caught up with tabletop Magic: the Gathering, we will be taking a look at older Planeswalkers. We can’t give you any specific dates, however we can tell you that we will start with older, underpowered Planeswalkers.

When can we expect to see Standard / Legacy Training Grounds?
Sometime between M19 and Guilds of Ravnica.

Could we get more insight into your design process, similar to how Mark Rosewater does several articles after a set comes out?
Unfortunately we can’t make a series of articles talking about the entire set, however if players want to know more about any mechanic in the game (Leader, I’m looking at you), we can definitely write an article discussing it and where it came from.

Will future sets make use of the unique tokens keyworded onto cards (like Verix Bladewind or Josu) or was that a 1 time only thing to make Dominaria easier?
Yes. The new token templating will be seen in future sets.

Will Leader appear in future sets, and can you explain why it was created and then used so sparingly?
Yes, Leader will be seen in future sets. As to why it was created, we will be releasing a small article with the thought process behind it.

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We hope you're enjoying the new changes in 2.7.1, and the June Q&A Session! If you have any questions you'd like to ask in this month's July Q&A Session, then please visit the Question Submission thread to submit it.

Thanks!

Mburn7

Ok, first of all, I can't believe that this is what they were too busy to put out.  This is literally 15 min worth of work, maybe.  I spend more time than that checking Wimbledon scores at work today.  Come on guys.

Now, onto the specific comments.

Brigby said:

When can we expect to see Standard / Legacy Training Grounds?
Sometime between M19 and Guilds of Ravnica.

This means that the much anticipated Standard/Legacy training grounds will be here at some point between 2.8 (most likely coming out in the next couple weeks) and October (when Guilds comes out).

This is a good answer, in that it is vague in a specific way.  You'll start hearing about this again end of August/beginning of September.  You have been warned.

Brigby said:

Could we get more insight into your design process, similar to how Mark Rosewater does several articles after a set comes out?
Unfortunately we can’t make a series of articles talking about the entire set, however if players want to know more about any mechanic in the game (Leader, I’m looking at you), we can definitely write an article discussing it and where it came from.

This was my question, so thanks for answering it!  It may be a good idea to set up some kind of official post after each set comes out for suggestions for this if it will be reoccurring in the future.  Leader is an obvious choice for Dominaria (as are Sagas), but future sets may not be so easy.  Or you can just wait for us to complain about something and go from there.  Your call.

Brigby said:

Hi Everyone,

Will future sets make use of the unique tokens keyworded onto cards (like Verix Bladewind or Josu) or was that a 1 time only thing to make Dominaria easier?
Yes. The new token templating will be seen in future sets.

Thank you!  I love the new token templating, it does streamline things.  I would suggest putting the tokens in the card gallery, though, so we don't have to wait to get the cards to find out what they do.  Not a bit deal, but it would be very nice.

UweTellkampf

Maybe I missed it, but do you plan to use the leader keyword in future sets?

span_argoman

UweTellkampf said:

Maybe I missed it, but do you plan to use the leader keyword in future sets?

Yup, they first said it would be in Core 2019, then said it would be in future expansions, then said they will be writing a whole article about it.

Froggy

Wonderful. Thanks for the answers. I’m looking forward to all that is about to come - next sets, Standard/Legacy TG, Leader, etc. I feel there is renewed promise in the game and it is becoming more and more evident that the new design team has been working hard to improve pretty much everything about the game. I’m probably most looking forward to old PW rebalancing, as that will mean lots of tinkering and playing around with ancestral PWs that have been moolding and collecting dust on the virtual shelf... So that’s actually going to be very interesting to see.

One question remains unanswered though @Brigby - what about Tier rebalancing? And is there any plan to help newer players get better rewards so they have an easier time of coming up to speed with the veteran community? I think that’s vital to getting and keeping new blood in this game.

GrizzoMtGPQ

Froggy said:

Wonderful. Thanks for the answers. I’m looking forward to all that is about to come - next sets, Standard/Legacy TG, Leader, etc. I feel there is renewed promise in the game and it is becoming more and more evident that the new design team has been working hard to improve pretty much everything about the game. I’m probably most looking forward to old PW rebalancing, as that will mean lots of tinkering and playing around with ancestral PWs that have been moolding and collecting dust on the virtual shelf... So that’s actually going to be very interesting to see.

One question remains unanswered though @Brigby - what about Tier rebalancing? And is there any plan to help newer players get better rewards so they have an easier time of coming up to speed with the veteran community? I think that’s vital to getting and keeping new blood in this game.

Try asking your question in the July Q&A.

Brigby

Froggy said:

-snip-

One question remains unanswered though Brigby - what about Tier rebalancing? And is there any plan to help newer players get better rewards so they have an easier time of coming up to speed with the veteran community? I think that’s vital to getting and keeping new blood in this game.

Color Mastery is something we've wanted to take a look at for a while, but as you can imagine, it's not exactly a quick endeavor. It affects so many different elements of the game, that if we were to adjust any aspect of it, we'd want to make sure anything else subsequently affected is accounted for in the design process.

As for newer players, before the concern of catching up to veterans even comes up, we've noticed that some players can become confused by the intricate nature of Magic: the Gathering and its Puzzle Quest adaptation. Due to this, our first priority for new players is to find ways to make the first-time user experience more intuitive and easier to understand right off the bat.

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