Portal:Production

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 Production

An uncut print sheet from Visions.

It takes a lot of organisation to produce a Magic: The Gathering set. A lot. The game is published by Wizards of the Coast (WotC), a subsidiary of the American multinational toy and board game Hasbro. Product releases can followed via their website Magicthegathering.com and the social media of front man Mark Rosewater. Depending on the product, it takes up to two years to go through the process from inception to a product on the shelves. Like any company, WotC has to consider different (international) markets and different target audiences. To provide for beginning players and advanced, casual and professional, Timmy's, Johnny's and Spikes, male and female, a whole line of tools and techniques has been developed through the years.

The main group of people to churn out the many yearly products is an ever changing team called Magic R&D. These stewards of Magic believe in discovery, surprise, and strategy. They are not afraid to change aspects of the game on a regular base or to add new elements to keep the metagame lively. They have advanced the game from a niche product to main stream.

 

 Research & Design

• Hasbro
• Wizards of the Coast
• Richard Garfield — Creator
• Historical stages of design
• R&D
  • Bill Rose — Vice President, R&D
  • Aaron Forsythe — Director of Magic R&D
  • Mark Rosewater — Head Designer
  • Erik Lauer — Head Developer
  • Other employees
• Creative
• Artists
• Product Architecture
• Editing
• Digital

 

 Process

• Exploratory design
• Vision Design
• Set Design (Development)
• Play Design
• Top-down design
• Great Designer Search
• Grand Creature Type Update
• Codenames
• Future Future League
• Playtesting
• Quick pointing

 

 Tools and Concepts

• Golden Trifecta
  • The trading card game genre
  • The mana system
  • The Color Pie
• Player types
  • Psychographic profiles
  • Aesthetic profiles
• Prototype creatures
• As-fan
• Reserved List
• Complexity creep
• New World Order
• Rosewater Scales
  • Beeble Scale (Creature type)
  • Rabiah Scale (Plane)
  • Storm Scale (Mechanic)
  • Venser Scale (Planeswalker)

 

 Cardboard and Marketing

• Print sheet
• Cards
• Parts of a card
• Rarity
• Grading
• Reprints
• Misprints
• Counterfeits
• Proxies
• Tokens
• Marketing cards
• Promotional cards
• Rules cards
• Pro Tour Player Cards
• Artist proofs
• Magic merchandise

 

 Categories

Any categories intended to group articles based on production of the game should be linked here.