Andy and Anthony reflect on the Mark Rosewater’s reflection on the past year in Magic. Every year, Magic’s lead designer shares lessons learned and strengths from each booster set. This year’s felt lacking a bit of thematic focus, but maybe the lack of focus is emblematic of this last year in Magic.

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Discussed in this episode:

Timestamps

0:00 - Introduction

3:32 - Is this even for us? How invested are we in Magic these days?

10:30 - Is this year’s ‘State of Design’ article more shallow than previous years?

12:57 - 2024’s Theme: Lack of Focus

17:43 - Lesson: Magic was too on the nose with its tropes

26:53 - Lesson: Some individual mechanics were too complex

32:09 - Lesson: More mechanics were polarizing than previous years 

49:41 - Does R&D drive Magic these days?

51:43 - Our favorite thing from Magic this year: grassroots Cube events

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