Topical Blend #3: Sessions
Wizards of the Coast is out of the office for the Labor Day holiday and will return with new content beginning Tuesday, September 4th. However, despite the holiday we've got the latest installment of the Planeswalkers minisite up for your viewing pleasure, and I think it's safe to say that this is one you definitely don't want to miss out on.
In case you missed it, what follows is the article that ran in this slot last week. Enjoy the minisite preview and we'll see you tomorrow!
- Scott Johns, magicthegathering.com Site Manager
My first Topical Blend interweaved My Ten Biggest Design Mistakes with Girls. It was called "To Err Is Human," and it was one of my most popular columns ever. The second Topical Blend combined Designing The Sixth Color with "Mark Rosewater Is @$^#%#$ Insane!" (a common header on a certain Magic-themed board). The article is one of my "out there" columns. If you go to the link let me stress that where you end up is in fact the article even if it doesn't seem like it. Really.
Which leads us to today. Let's start by seeing what topics you all selected for me. First the Magic poll:
| List A - Magic Related (Choose One) | ||
| The Top Ten Coolest Creatures Ever Designed | 736 | 9.5% |
| The worst card in each set taken in context of when that set was released | 545 | 7.1% |
| How does Wizards lose Magic players? | 479 | 6.2% |
| Benchmarks in Magic (i.e. Grizzly Bears as 2/2s for 2, destroying a land for three mana ala Stone Rain, four mana for a permanent card drawer such as Jayemdae Tome, and the like) | 394 | 5.1% |
| The design of Tarmogoyf | 385 | 5.0% |
| Designing iconic legendary creatures (i.e., Phage, Akroma, Dakkon Blackblade, etc.) and their importance to the game both from a marketing perspective and from a game-play perspective | 327 | 4.2% |
| The effect of Magic Online on paper Magic | 274 | 3.5% |
| Designing one drops | 272 | 3.5% |
| Rejected Un-Set cards | 256 | 3.3% |
| The future of the color pie | 249 | 3.2% |
| The reserved list | 243 | 3.1% |
| How I would have designed an old set (Alpha, Arabian Nights, etc.) in the present | 232 | 3.0% |
| Top ten hits and misses in artifacts | 216 | 2.8% |
| Other games that influence Magic design | 199 | 2.6% |
| Power creep | 196 | 2.5% |
| Stories, great plays, and/or mistakes from actual Magic games I've played | 194 | 2.5% |
| Evolution of the color wheel | 184 | 2.4% |
| Alternative win conditions | 181 | 2.3% |
| Dead design space | 166 | 2.1% |
| The 'Universal Base Set,' a.k.a. UBS | 156 | 2.0% |
| The removed-from-the-game zone | 139 | 1.8% |
| Bizarre design inspirations | 124 | 1.6% |
| Fungus | 121 | 1.6% |
| Old mechanics that weren't good | 115 | 1.5% |
| Failed ideas that eventually worked | 102 | 1.3% |
| Designing dragons | 101 | 1.3% |
| The less-glamorous side of R&D | 89 | 1.2% |
| Famous people completely outside the world of gaming who would make good Magic designers | 87 | 1.1% |
| Bluffing cards | 78 | 1.0% |
| Collecting Magic cards | 76 | 1.0% |
| Wacky formats | 73 | 0.9% |
| My greatest failures and greatest successes as a designer | 72 | 0.9% |
| Old cards to which I have an emotional attachment | 70 | 0.9% |
| R&D's view of 'You lose the game' | 67 | 0.9% |
| Designing spells that cost nothing to play | 60 | 0.8% |
| My very first game of Magic | 55 | 0.7% |
| The design of B.F.M. (from Unglued) | 49 | 0.6% |
| Block design | 47 | 0.6% |
| Making decisions for a core set | 43 | 0.6% |
| Shapeshifters | 38 | 0.5% |
| When flavor and mechanics clash | 35 | 0.5% |
| Inter-block connectivity | 31 | 0.4% |
| Reflections on the designs of past Magic blocks | 30 | 0.4% |
| Designing brand-new environments | 29 | 0.4% |
| Rarity switching (e.g. Rukh Egg and Repentant Blacksmith) | 26 | 0.3% |
| Latest Developments (Aaron's column) | 25 | 0.3% |
| The Magic Pro Tour Hall of Fame | 23 | 0.3% |
| People other than Mark Rosewater who work in R&D | 22 | 0.3% |
| Choosing design teams for sets | 6 | 0.1% |
| The interaction of Design with other departments | 5 | 0.1% |
| Total | 7722 | 100.0% |
Next is the non-Magic poll:
| Non-Magic Related (Choose One) | ||
| Dungeons and Dragons (RPGs) | 848 | 9.6% |
| Picard vs. Kirk | 658 | 7.4% |
| Monty Python | 577 | 6.5% |
| All things Joss Whedon | 418 | 4.7% |
| Harry Potter | 395 | 4.5% |
| The evil deeds of MaGo | 351 | 4.0% |
| "Lost" | 347 | 3.9% |
| Wizards in-jokes | 345 | 3.9% |
| Jim Henson and the Muppets | 326 | 3.7% |
| Gleemax (the alien brain in the jar, not the card) | 303 | 3.4% |
| Seven deadly sins | 289 | 3.3% |
| Censorship | 268 | 3.0% |
| Richard Garfield | 232 | 2.6% |
| "Seinfeld" | 231 | 2.6% |
| Classic arcade games | 181 | 2.0% |
| Oxymorons | 169 | 1.9% |
| Marriage | 165 | 1.9% |
| Time travel | 162 | 1.8% |
| 80s Movies | 160 | 1.8% |
| Comics and superheroes | 156 | 1.8% |
| Bad movie choices | 155 | 1.8% |
| The famous people I've met in my current and past career | 149 | 1.7% |
| Board games | 145 | 1.6% |
| Urban legends | 135 | 1.5% |
| Stand-up comedy | 116 | 1.3% |
| Science fiction | 112 | 1.3% |
| Pirates | 111 | 1.3% |
| Life as a young Rosewater | 104 | 1.2% |
| Puzzles | 103 | 1.2% |
| Writing for television / my time on "Roseanne" | 94 | 1.1% |
| Office gossip | 90 | 1.0% |
| The Internet | 82 | 0.9% |
| College | 75 | 0.8% |
| Raising children | 70 | 0.8% |
| Writing and the use of metaphors | 67 | 0.8% |
| Things that start with the letter "X" | 67 | 0.8% |
| Stick Figures | 66 | 0.7% |
| Magic (as in real world, David Copperfield magicians) | 59 | 0.7% |
| My favorite books | 58 | 0.7% |
| Dealing with being a celebrity of sorts | 51 | 0.6% |
| My favorite movies | 51 | 0.6% |
| Chocolate | 48 | 0.5% |
| Reality TV shows | 43 | 0.5% |
| Interesting tales from world travels | 42 | 0.5% |
| Harry Houdini | 39 | 0.4% |
| My favorite TV shows (excluding "Roseanne") | 37 | 0.4% |
| San Diego Comic-Con | 29 | 0.3% |
| Part-time jobs | 26 | 0.3% |
| Desserts | 24 | 0.3% |
| Writing articles | 22 | 0.2% |
| Total | 8851 | 100.0% |
Okay, we have The Top Ten Coolest Creatures in Magic and Dungeons & Dragons. I'll admit I was a little upset when I first saw the results because I felt the two topics were a little too easy to combine. After all, "The Top Ten Coolest Magic Creatures Inspired by Dungeons & Dragons" is more than worthy as a topic of a column, but the reason I do Topical Blends is to stretch myself as a writer. As such, I decided to try a much less obvious path to connect the two. I hope you like it.
Click here for Topical Blend #3: Sessions.