Mark Rosewater, longtime lead designer of Magic: The Gathering for Wizards of the Coast, reviewed “highlights” and “lessons” from Magic sets published since June 2024 in his annual State of Design essay.
One of the key takeaways from this year’s review of design essay was that fans’ reactions to The One Ring card from the The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set were very polarizing. On the gameplay side of the equation, many felt The One Ring was a format-warping card. In Modern, The One Ring is used in more than 30% of decks and has little or no downside to playing it, even though the burden counters mechanic was meant to function as a downside. The One Ring was one of two cards from this set that were mentioned by Rosewater in the article as being “too good,” the other being Orcish Bowmasters, and several players wish these two cards will be banned one day.
On the collectability side, fans were divided on the printing of the 001/001 The One Ring (see “The One Ring 001/001“). Some were upset by the existence of the “one of ” card and others liked it for unstated reasons in the article. Rosewater also mentioned that WotC also has the option to reprint The One Ring card as an in-universe equivalent to quell fears that when the LotR license expires the card, mechanically, will be gone from Magic as well.
Rosewater also mentioned Modern Horizons 3 in the article, which was a big hit (see “Bestselling ‘Magic’ Set of All Time“) with fans because of its fun limited format and double-faced cards. However, he did mention that, gameplay-wise, the set created a couple of issues worth noting. The first issue was caused by Nadu, Winged Wisdom, who Rosewater admits created play balance issues in Modern (see “Cumbersome Combo“). The second issue was that players disliked the impact that Modern Horizons 3 had on older formats like Legacy and Vintage, as it uprooted some the staple decks in those formats.
On a more general design note, Rosewater admitted designers were leaning into tropes a little too much for set themes. Many Magic fans still “want the Magic in-universe sets to feel more like Magic” and that some of the more recently introduced planes have felt little “thinner” than usual. Several fans are still interested in story of the Multiverse and are looking for designers to build more in-depth planes for the Magic core story.
Source: ICV2
