One of my many goals with Making Magic is to help amateur Magic designers learn how to design their own sets. To help with this, starting in 2009, I began writing an annual series called "Nuts & Bolts," where I give practical advice to players who are interested in designing their own Magic sets. These articles have proven to be a great peek behind the scenes on how we design sets. Even if you never plan to create a Magic card, these articles should be informative.

This is my eighteenth year of doing a "Nuts & Bolts" column. Here are the previous seventeen installments:

Here's a recap of what I've written so far.

Nuts & Bolts #1: Card Codes
The first article is the most technical, as it explains the system we use to make sure everyone is talking about the same card.

Nuts & Bolts #2: Design Skeleton
The second article introduces the most important tool in designing a set: the design skeleton. It makes use of card codes, which is why that article came first.

Nuts & Bolts #3: Filling in the Design Skeleton
The third article talks about how designers fill out the design skeleton with the common cards.

Nuts & Bolts #4: Higher Rarities
The fourth article talks about filling in the design skeleton's other rarities.

Nuts & Bolts #5: Initial Playtesting
The fifth article discusses how to use playtesting to gather feedback and improve a Magic set.

Nuts & Bolts #6: Iteration
The sixth article talks about the concept of iteration and how it can be used to incrementally improve your set.

Nuts & Bolts #7: Three Stages of Design
The seventh article explains the three different stages of design as defined in 2015, including the individual priorities of each stage.

Nuts & Bolts #8: Troubleshooting
The eighth article answers a number of questions about common problems that can happen from early to mid-design.

Nuts & Bolts #9: Evaluation
The ninth article talks about how we look at a Magic set as a whole and figure out how to fine-tune it.

Nuts & Bolts #10: Creative Elements
The tenth article discusses how we weave together mechanics and creative elements. I go over top-down and bottom-up designs, along with how card names, creature types, and flavor text affect design.

Nuts & Bolts #11: Art
The eleventh article talks about the importance of using art in later playtests and how to incorporate it into a set.

Nuts & Bolts #12, Part 1: Limited (Mechanics)
This twelfth article was broken into two parts. Both talk about how to build a set's Limited environment. The first article focuses on making sure your mechanics work for Limited play.

Nuts & Bolts #12, Part 2: Limited (Themes)
The second part focuses on building a set's mechanical themes for Limited play.

Nuts & Bolts #13: Design Skeleton Revisited
R&D revamped the design skeleton, so I went through the updated skeleton we use for every Magic set.

Nuts & Bolts #14: Initial Ideation
My fourteenth article covered how we build the initial ideas for Magic sets.

Nuts & Bolts #15: Structural Support
Here, I talked about what we call "structural support," a practice where we make sure sets have all the elements they need to work properly, especially in Limited play.

Nuts & Bolts #16: Play Boosters
I walked through all the changes to our design skeleton that came about because of the shift from Draft Boosters to Play Boosters.

Nuts & Bolts #17: Finding Your Mechanics, Part 1
In this two-part article, I explained how to create mechanics. In this first part, I walked through the many ways you can create mechanics.

Nuts & Bolts #17: Finding Your Mechanics, Part 2
In part two, I walked through the steps to help iterate on your mechanics once you've created them and figure out what size your mechanic should be.

This brings me to my eighteenth "Nuts & Bolts" article. Last year I talked about how to create mechanics. But there comes a point in design (in early vision design for us) where you're done mapping out the set and you want to make an actual card file. This year, I'm going to explore how to start layering your mechanics into a single set. How do you actually add them to your file? How can one mechanic inform what other mechanics you need? How do a mechanic's needs change as your file evolves?

Where to Begin

Let me start with the most important lesson for today. You only get to add mechanics to your file one at a time. The reason is simple. You start with a blank file (there are numerous articles linked above on how to create a set skeleton, which is an important tool to building a Magic card file) and can do almost anything you can think up. But once you place something in the file, now there are slots that are full. You can't place other cards in a filled slot. This starts adding limitations. You have to "layer" your mechanics because you have to choose ones that complement what is already in the file. Each mechanic added has to fit into an open space in the file.

This of course leads to a question: how do I decide on the first mechanic for the file?

There are a bunch of possible answers to this:

Choose the Most Complicated Mechanic

Not all mechanics are created equal. Some mechanics require a lot of structure, so they're very hard to fit in once your set is committed to doing other things. One strategic way to build a set is to start with the most complicated mechanic you have. This allows you the freedom to address every need for your most difficult mechanic.

Choose the Mechanic That Most Embodies the Set

The goal of any Magic card file is to create an evocative set that captures a cool flavor in a resonant way. Adding your most evocative mechanic to the set first allows you to build around it and ensures that it's the core of the set's structure.

Choose the Mechanic That Has the Greatest Synergy

Because the first mechanic you put into a set defines how the other mechanics fit, choose something that has a lot of flexibility and will play nicely with other mechanics. This makes it significantly easier to find other mechanics that will work with your first mechanic.

Choose the Largest Mechanic

Only the first mechanic you put in is guaranteed to have enough space to fit. If a mechanic needs a lot of space in the set, it simply might not fit if it isn't the first mechanic.

Choose Your Favorite Mechanic

The only mechanic you know for sure will fit is the first one, so if you have a favorite, you might want to start there. If you don't include your favorite first, you might not be able to fit it in later.

None of these is the definitive right answer. The right choice depends on the kind of set you're building and what mechanics you created early on that you feel are good fits for your overall vision. I would recommend looking at the various mechanics you've been playtesting and asking yourself the following questions about your potential mechanics:

  • How complicated is it?
  • What other things need to be in the file for it to work?
  • What types of card elements or themes does it synergize with?
  • How flavorful is it?
  • How well do your playtesters like it?
  • What colors does it fit into within the color pie?
  • Roughly how many cards can you make with it?

I should stress that you're not going to be able to answer all of these questions just by looking at your mechanics. You will have to make cards with the mechanics, then make decks with those cards and playtest them.

For early playtests, make 40-card decks with these cards and play them against each other. I suggest 40-card decks because the deck construction will mirror Sealed play. The decks don't need a lot of new cards, just enough for you to test your mechanic. I'd suggest eight to twelve. The rest of the cards can be existing Magic cards, although if you need something you can't find, just make up the card you need. For the reprints, I would err toward simple cards like ones from Magic: The Gathering Foundations, as you want to minimize the noise in the set so you can focus on your mechanic. Just assume all your lands tap for whatever color you need. These playtests are about testing your mechanics through gameplay. You're not testing the environment yet.

After playing, ask yourself if the mechanic was fun to play. If it was, put it in the pile of mechanics to consider. If not, see if you can understand why it wasn't fun. Is that something you can fix? If so, tweak the mechanic and make a new playtest deck. If it isn't fixable, toss it and move on to a new mechanic. Often, it's in the middle. You can see the mechanic's potential, but it wasn't great. Iterating is a core part of design. If you see a glimmer of something, figure out what you like most about it, then change other factors.

At some point, you will have a list of potential mechanics that might go into your set. Once you have the list, the next step is to figure out which mechanic is the one you want to focus on. Prioritization is key. All your mechanics can't be given equal weight. You need to figure out which one you want to start with when building your file.

The exercise I would suggest is to take all the mechanics you've liked in playtesting and rank how much you'd like to put them in your set from most to least. How well did they play? How evocative were they? Did they align with your vision for the set? These are all questions you should ask while ranking mechanics.

The reason for numbering them is that once you start building a file, you have to know the prioritization of your mechanics. The mechanic you rank first is the thing you feel is most important to the set. The mechanic you rank second is the second-most important, but it will get cut if it can't fit in a set with the first mechanic already in it.

Your prioritization can change as you design your set, although it shouldn't change often. The important thing is that, at any one moment in time, you know what matters most to your design. If two elements are fighting for space, you have to know which one you're choosing to keep. This can be brutal but is key to making the best design. Every mechanic, theme, cycle, and card has to advance the set's vision. If it's not, it needs to be cut, no matter how well it plays in isolation.

The First Mechanic

I find that once you do the hard work of prioritization, it's usually not that hard to figure out what to start with. If a few mechanics seem to be of equal weight, I personally tend to lean toward the mechanic that most likely won't fit if not added first. When you add the first mechanic, be a bit liberal in your use of it, or try having too much of it rather than too little. It's much easier to notice when something is too high in volume than too low.

I would then suggest filling out your commons and uncommons (with slots dictated by the design skeleton I talked about in a previous article) with reprints. Again, if you really need something that doesn't exist, just make it. Now, play Sealed with your card file. If you have a bunch of people to playtest with you, I would suggest making sure that everyone plays different colors. One simple way to do that is to give each player cards of the colors you want them to play. You want all players to use all the different colors because you want to experience your mechanic from all facets of the file.

I should stress that R&D tends to fit a lot more mechanics into our first playtest, but that comes with years of experience. We have a much more intuitive sense of how much space a mechanic should fill, so we can use past knowledge to gather information that you all will need to playtest to get.

After your playtest, you and your playtesters should talk through your feelings on the mechanic or mechanics you're testing. What did you like most about it? On what cards did it shine? What did you like least? Which cards did you least like it on? This is why you want to make a lot of different cards at first because you're exploring the design space. Playtesting will tell you what works and what doesn't.

Use what you learn from playtesting to iterate. Pull out the cards that didn't play well. Create more like the ones that did. Start fine tuning what makes the mechanic sing. You should do as many iterations as you need until you start to get a sense of what makes this mechanic work. It might grow, or it might shrink. It might shift to different card types or go up or down in certain colors. What you're doing is getting a sense of your first mechanic's space in the set.

At this point, it's possible your first mechanic isn't living up to your expectations. If you play enough and find it's become lackluster, you can remove it and start over with a new first mechanic. Good design doesn't always move forward. Sometimes you have to move backward to fix something that isn't working. That's not a failure; that's just design. You will try things that end up not working. That's why you're playtesting, so you can figure it out.

There's no rush here. Sure, when we design a Magic set, we have a schedule to keep. But you don't. The one suggestion I'll make is to keep tweaking between playtests. Let the mechanic start to fill the organic space it wants to take up. When you start finding yourself slowing down in iterating, it's time to layer in a second mechanic.

The Second Mechanic

Look at the mechanic you ranked second on your prioritization list. Does it fit into your current card file? If it does, add it to the file, removing whatever reprints you can to make room. If you're not sure if it fits, try adding it. Nothing will tell you more definitively if it fits than actually putting it into the file. If it almost fits, it's okay to tweak it a little, but make sure you're not removing the thing that made it a second-ranked mechanic. Also, do not take out cards with your first mechanic. Your first and second mechanics have to fit together in the file. Later in design, you will be able to take out cards with your first mechanic, but I'd avoid doing that when you're figuring out if your mechanics fit.

If your second mechanic doesn't fit, move on to the third or fourth, or whatever is the next mechanic, by priority, that fits in the file. Usually your second mechanic will fit. As a rule of thumb, you can usually fit two mechanics into most files before you start having issues with additional mechanics fitting. That's not always true, but I would say it is true most the time.

The best second mechanics are ones that play in a different space than the first mechanic. For example, if the first mechanic is a creature mechanic, it's great if the second mechanic is a spell mechanic. A big part of filling in a file is being more aware of what holes you have left to fill. And remember, reprints are essentially holes for file-filling purposes. You're just using those cards for playtesting.

Once you have the second mechanic in the file, it's time for more playtesting. At some point, it's fine to add in a few rares. I'd start with rare reprints, as they're already balanced and won't disrupt playtests, but eventually you can start designing some of your own rares. You don't need a lot of rares for Sealed playtests.

You'll want to continue iterating as you play, and, yes, you're free to iterate on any cards, including cards with your first mechanic. The thing with these playtests is that you're not just testing if the second mechanic fits. You're also testing how well it plays with the first mechanic. If the two play fine in a vacuum but aren't synergizing with each other, that's usually a sign you might want to try a different second mechanic. Good iterative changes start by tweaking the cards with the first and second mechanic to start interacting better with one another.

Once your first two mechanics fit in the file and work together, it's time to start thinking about if you want to reduce the footprint of either of your two mechanics. Maybe you want to limit a mechanic to just certain colors or a certain rarity or rarities. Having two mechanics in your file allows you to start experimenting with what space each mechanic wants to fill. Once your file feels good, it's time to move on to the third mechanic.

The Third Mechanic and Beyond

The basic process is the same. Go to your prioritization list and try the next mechanic. This is usually the point where you find that most of your list doesn't fit. It depends on the size and shape of your first two mechanics, and you might get lucky or have a mechanic that you can adapt to fit, but with your third mechanic or the next, you'll realize that your design has shifted to the next phase. Instead of using what you have, you'll want to start designing what you need.

I would start by listing what space is left. Here are some areas to explore:

Color

As you start designing with your mechanics, they'll often be concentrated in certain colors. Your first mechanic produces mana, so it wants to mainly be in red and green. Your second mechanic cares about +1/+1 counters, so it's mainly in green and white. That means blue and black need some attention and probably you can stop worrying about green.

Card Type

Say both of your first two mechanics focus on permanents. That might mean you should find something that works on instants and sorceries.

Rarity

If your first mechanic is only uncommons and above and your second mechanic is limited to simple effects, maybe what you need is something that will help out at common for your third mechanic.

Game Focus

If your first two mechanics are all about creature combat, you might want a mechanic that's focused on things outside of combat.

Types of Effects

If your first mechanic involves scaling, it needs a very limited list of effects. This means if you make another effect-based mechanic, you want the other mechanic's effects to focus on a different design vein.

Necessary Elements

Here are three elements we try to have in every set:

  • Mana sinks (ways to spend mana late in the game)
  • Card flow (ways to help you get to the cards you need in your deck)
  • Creature combat (ways to help create inertia to get creatures to attack)

If you're missing any of these in your first two mechanics, you should look to see if future mechanics can address the deficiency. In addition, you'll want to explore if your later mechanics can help tie together themes from earlier mechanics. There's a good example of this in Kaladesh. The set had a token theme and a +1/+1 counter theme, but there wasn't anything tying them together. This led us to design fabricate, a mechanic where you get to choose between making artifact creature tokens and getting +1/+1 counters.

The key to this stage of design is to create what your set needs. A lot of Magic design is not about open-ended, blue-sky thinking but rather problem solving. As I like to say, restrictions breed creativity, and having something to work toward will often help you get the most exciting results.

I know there's this mythology around the idea of spark-of-genius ideas coming out of the blue, but most design work isn't like that. Most Magic design involves finding things that fit your vision, not expanding your vision to fit things you come up with.

Here are some tips on design exploration:

1. Keep Trying Different Approaches

The human brain loves creating neural pathways that it revisits again and again. That's great when you don't want to think about doing something you do every day. No one, for instance, wants to spend time remembering how to eat. But when you're being creative, going down the same neural pathway tends to get you to the same outcome. If you vary your input, though, you'll start getting different outputs.

2. The Sweet Spot Is Necessity Combined with Synergy

Many years ago, I wrote an article about creativity called "Connect the Dots." In it, I explained that I believed the core of creativity was finding connections between two things that you'd previously never connected. You can use this technique for this brainstorm. Pick one thing the set is missing (like a spell mechanic) and one synergy you're looking for (something that will play nicely with the "enchantments matter" theme). Crossing those two items will create a nexus that your brain can use to explore new design space. If you start running out of ideas you like, change one or both parameters.

3. The Past Is Your Friend

Magic has made over 30,000 unique cards. That's a resource you should use when looking for new ideas. Often when I'm brainstorming, I like to have a Magic database open. Start searching for relevant words and see what cards come up. I can't count the number of times an old Magic card has inspired a whole new mechanic. The classic example here was when I solved the original Lorwyn set's need for typal glue by borrowing from the card Mistform Ultimus to create changeling.

4. There's Nothing Wrong with Reusing an Old Mechanic

There's an expression I like: "Don't look outside the box until you look inside." Sometimes the mechanic you're looking for already exists. There's nothing wrong with using something we already figured out years ago. In fact, as a rule of thumb, we like to have at least one returning mechanic in each set.

Once you find a mechanic that shows promise (and yes, you can use the same technique of building playtest decks if needed), put it into the file and continue iterating. Keep doing this until your file is full. This usually happens with at least three mechanics, and normally no more than six. It will depend on many factors, the biggest being how much space each mechanic takes up.

As you iterate, you may find that a mechanic that previously seemed like it was working stops gelling with the rest of the set. If tweaking it doesn't work, you can remove it and use the same technique from above to find a replacement for it.

I should stress that there are different types of set structures that are more advanced and require more nuance in how you add mechanics. For example, faction sets where each fraction has its own mechanic need each mechanic to synergize with the faction mechanics that overlap with it in color, which requires a more elaborate system to create the balance and synergy between the mechanics, but this system should work well for a more basic and straightforward design.

I'm eager to hear how it works for all of you.

Class Dismissed

I hope you enjoyed this year's "Nuts & Bolts" article. I would love to hear whether you enjoyed the article or found it helpful in building your own sets. Remember, I can't hear unsolicited designs, so tell me about the big picture rather than explaining the details of your mechanics. You can leave feedback through email or social media (Bluesky, Tumblr, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter).

Join me next week for a discussion of Universes Beyond mechanics and how we design them.

Until then, may you find a wonderful suite of mechanics.