Latest Developments

Latest Developments is a weekly column published every Friday on Magicthegathering.com. It concerns the development of Magic cards, as opposed to the design which is handled by Mark Rosewater in Making Magic. The column is written by a prominent member of R&D who is commonly on the development teams. In June 2017, the column was taken over by Play Design, in the person of Melissa DeTora. The column was renamed Play Design, as well.

The column was previously handled by Randy Buehler (until February 2004 ), Aaron Forsythe (until August 2007), Devin Low (until August 2008), Tom LaPille (until December 2011 ) and Zac Hill (until August 2012). Mark Globus, Mike Turian, Matt Place, Erik Lauer, Kenneth Nagle, Bill Stark, Mike Elliott, and Mark Gottlieb have contributed as guest authors. Since August 2012 some have them occasionally returned in the rotating roster. For a while it was written by a rotating core of developers like Billy Moreno, Dave Humpherys, Sam Stoddard and Dave Guskin. For years afterwards (April 2013 to June 2017), it was written by Sam Stoddard on his own.

A fixture of the column are articles in the wake of Banned and Restricted Updates that explain the reasons behind the changes that were made. Another high-profile event that took place during the run of the column was naming the new Type 1.5 format, after it became independent of Vintage, and the change to the Reprint policy in 2002.

In June 2017, the column named Play Design replaced Latest Developments. It is written by Melissa DeTora.