Playtesting, Part 1: Proof of Concept

#WotCStaff

First, a disclaimer: I’m mostly on Exploratory and Vision Design teams, with occasional stints on Set Design. But I know very little about FFL and other testing that happens later in the pipeline.

There are a few different kinds of testing that happen in early design. The first one is the “proof of concept” deck. This usually takes place in Exploratory or early Vision when we’re experimenting with new mechanics for a set.

If I have an idea for a new mechanic, I’ll design about eight cards for it (mostly common, some uncommon) across whichever two colors makes the most sense for it. Duplication is fine, but it's also nice to feel out how much common space there is.

Then I’ll put one copy of each into a 40 card “limited” deck of commons and uncommons taken from recent core sets or whatever else fits the mechanical theme. I’m aiming to emulate a low-powered but high-synergy draft deck.

Rares aren’t helpful at this stage because they stand out so much in limited games that they would distract from the goal of playtesting. (For example, playing against Aurelia in draft wouldn't teach us much about Mentor.)

Then we’ll bring decks like this (or “dummy” limited decks) to meetings and playtest them against each other. During those games, we’re thinking about a lot of questions.

The biggest one is, are we having fun with these cards?

How easy are they to read and understand? Do they create interesting game states and decisions? Do they make the player feel smart? Are there enough power level knobs? Do they promote any repetitive or otherwise undesirable play patterns?

How large is the design space? Does the flavor match the world? How bad does it feel to lose with or against these cards? How wordy is the template? What rarities does this mechanic make sense on? What card types? What colors? What CMCs?

How demanding are these cards of player attention? Do they require any weird rules knowledge? Do they require tons of clicks on Arena/MTGO? Assuming they work in limited (since that’s what we’re playing), what’s the potential for constructed?

How similar is this mechanic to past mechanics? What does it overlap with in Standard? How much does it belong in this set as opposed any other set? Will it require any special frame treatment? Will it require tons of programming hours?

This list is not exhaustive, of course. We don’t have a set checklist we run down. These questions vary in importance, and everything is contextual. A lot of it is gut feel, where you’ll notice if something seems off.

If you like designing your own Magic mechanics at home, this playtesting process is a great place to start. (Please don’t send me your designs, though! I’m not allowed to look at them.)

I'm also glad to answer some questions about this process.