One Thousand Two Hundred and Counting

My first Making Magic article was published in January of 2002. In November of 2003, I reached my 100th article, so I decided to write an article where I looked back at each of those 100 articles, gave a short synopsis, graded it, and linked to it for easy access. That article was called "One Hundred and Counting." It was well liked, so now, for every 100 articles, I do the same. Recently, I hit my 1,200th week of writing articles, so it's time for another look back.

There are two reasons I do this recap article. First, it serves as a record for people who want to go back and find a particular article. Second, it's a resource for newer readers who want some idea where to start when diving into the ever-growing pool of Making Magic articles.

This is the twelfth installment in the series. Here are the first eleven:

• "One Hundred and Counting"
• "Two Hundred and Counting"
• "Three Hundred and Counting"
• "Four Hundred and Counting"
• "Five Hundred and Counting"
• "Six Hundred and Counting"
• "Seven Hundred and Counting"
• "Eight Hundred and Counting"
• "Nine Hundred and Counting"
• "One Thousand and Counting"
• "One Thousand One Hundred and Counting"

As always, here's my five-star scale:

This is as good as it gets. The crème de la crème. If you're going to catch up on any old articles, these are the ones to read.

While not my absolute best, this article is one of my better pieces.

One of my bread-and-butter articles. It's nothing spectacular but not too shabby either.

At best, a ho-hum read. At worst, a failed experiment.

The only reason to read this is to say you've read every article. Not my finest hour.

Whenever I write one of these articles, I get questions about why there are so few low-rated articles. There are three reasons:

1. I'm keeping a consistent grading scale across all of my "Hundred and Counting" articles. In the early years, I published some low-rated articles, so I can't just get rid of the lower ratings and readjust the scale.
2. If I feel I've written an article that would earn less than three stars, I rewrite it. I'm always aiming for five-star articles, so my three-star pieces are me "hitting low."
3. I've been doing this for 1,200 weeks, or over 22 years. I believe I'm, on average, writing stronger material than I was back in 2002.

With that out of the way, let's talk about some articles.

Week #1101 (January 17, 2023) – "Phyrexia: All Will Be One Direction, Part 1"

This is my first preview article for Phyrexia: All Will Be One. We were returning to New Phyrexia, so I walked through what we felt we needed to bring back mechanically and how we adapted those mechanics to react to the lessons of the previous visit to New Phyrexia. The article also introduces the designers from the Exploratory Design and Vision Design teams.

Week #1102 (January 23, 2023) – "Phyrexia: All Will Be One Direction, Part 2"

This is my second preview article for Phyrexia: All Be One. I continue my design story and talk about how we captured the feel of the Phyrexians through the set's mechanics while updating them to match modern design philosophies. I also introduced the Set Design team.

Week #1103 (January 30, 2023) – "Mission Compleat, Part 1"

This is part one of a two-part card-by-card design article for Phyrexia: All Be One. I choose a handful of common cards and then walk through the design of the card at each iteration, using our database to show you each change the card went through. If you like the crunchy bits of how cards evolve over the course of a design, this article is for you.

Week #1104 (February 6, 2023) – "Mission Compleat, Part 2"

This is part two of a two-part card-by-card design story article for Phyrexia: All Be One. While the first article examined design evolution of cards, this article takes a big-picture approach, providing context for how we decided on the mechanical themes of the set.

Week #1105 (February 13, 2023) – "Phyrexia: All Will Be One Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 1"

When vision design hands off their work to set design, we create a document explaining what we've done, walking through all the mechanics and themes. These are the most hands-on articles I write, and readers really like them. I try to share them whenever I can.

This is the actual document I handed off when I finished vision design annotated with comments also by me. You will see early versions of things that ended up in the set and some things that didn't. If you're an aspiring designer or just really appreciate behind-the-scenes information about how we design, this is as meaty as it gets.

Week #1106 (February 20, 2023) – "Phyrexia: All Will Be One Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 2"

This is the second part of Phyrexia: All Will Be One's vision design handoff document. Part two talks a lot about the use of oil counters and Phyrexian mana.

Week #1107 (February 27, 2023) – "One Thousand One Hundred and Counting"

This was my last "__________ and Counting article". It's a great resource if you're unfamiliar with that two-year stretch of my articles.

Week #1108 (March 6, 2023) – "Nuts & Bolts #15: Structural Support"

Every year during the first quarter, I do a series called "Nuts & Bolts" where I talk specifically about how to design your own Magic set. This was the fifteenth installment in the series. This article talks about a thing called structural support. It examines what technically has to be in a set to make sure that it will play appropriately. I talk about things like creature percentages and mana curves. If you're trying to make your own Magic set, I heartily encourage you to read the whole "Nuts & Bolts" series (linked in that article).

Week #1109 (March 13, 2023) – "Lessons Learned, Part 1"

Many years back on my podcast Drive to Work, I started a series called "Lessons Learned," where I look at sets that I led or co-led the design for and walk through many of the lessons I learned working on that design. I thought it would be cool to bring this series to Making Magic. I don't go as in depth in the articles, as I'm tackling releases per article, but I do provide the link to each set's Drive to Work episode for those who want the full story. This article covers Tempest, Unglued, Urza's Destiny, Odyssey, Mirrodin, Fifth Dawn, and Unhinged.

Week #1110 (March 20, 2023) – "Lessons Learned, Part 2"

This is my second "Lessons Learned" article. In it, I talk about lessons I learned from Ravnica: City of Guilds, Future Sight, Shadowmoor, Eventide, and Zendikar.

Week #1111 (March 29, 2023) – "March of the Machine Learning, Part 1"

This is my first preview article for March of the Machine. I introduced the set's Exploratory Design and Vision Design teams and walked the reader through the design story of March of the Machine. This article focuses on the vision design of the set and talks about how we chose to mechanically represent the Phyrexians, the invaders in this Multiverse-encompassing war.

Week #1112 (April 3, 2023) – "March of the Machine Learning, Part 2"

This is my second preview article for March of the Machine. I introduced the Set Design team and went over how the various mechanics evolved, including how the new card type, battle, came into being.

Week #1113 (April 10, 2023) – "Choosing Your Battles, Part 1"

This is part one of a three-part series going over the development of every battle in March of the Machine. I talked about what each plane is and then how we chose to mechanically represent it with a battle.

Week #1114 (April 17, 2023) – "Choosing Your Battles, Part 2"

This is part two going through the design of every battle in March of the Machine.

Week #1115 (April 24, 2023) – "Choosing Your Battles, Part 3"

And this is part three of the card-by-card, battle-by-battle analysis.

Week #1116 (May 2, 2023) – "Doing the Aftermath"

This article talks about the ramifications of the Phyrexian invasion and explains how that's shown in March of the Machine: The Aftermath. In hindsight, this product was a huge failure, so it's interesting to see me presenting the idea for the first time.

Week #1117 (May 8, 2023) – "March of the Machine Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 1"

This is part one of two, going over March of the Machine's vision design handoff document. As normal, I annotate the actual document as handed off for set design. This first half focuses on how we chose to embody the Phyrexians.

Week #1118 (May 15, 2023) – "March of the Machine Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 2"

This is the second half of my annotated discussion of March of the Machine's vision design handoff document. The most interesting part of this second half is seeing the early version of what would later evolve into battles. It's quite different.

Week #1119 (May 22, 2023) – "Lessons Learned, Part 3"

This is the third article in my "Lessons Learned" series. It covers the lessons I learned from Scars of Mirrodin, Innistrad, Dark Ascension, Gatecrash, and Theros.

Week #1120 (May 30, 2023) – "Crafting the Ring, Part 1"

This is my preview article for The Lords of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth™. I introduce the Vision Design team and talk about the challenges of adapting a famous series of books for the very first large Universes Beyond set. The article focuses on the vision design of the set.

Week #1121 (June 5, 2023) – "Crafting the Ring, Part 2"

This is my second preview article for The Lords of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. I introduced the Set Design team and talked about the set design process.

Week #1122 (June 12, 2023) – "Stepping Into the Ring, Part 1"

This is the first of three articles going over some card-by-card design stories from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. I talked about how we captured the top-down flavor of different elements from the books.

Week #1123 (June 19, 2023) – "Lessons Learned, Part 4"

This is the fourth article in my "Lessons Learned" series. In it, I talked about lessons we learned from Khans of Tarkir, Battle for Zendikar, Kaladesh, Amonkhet, and Ixalan.

Week #1124 (June 26, 2023) – "Stepping Into the Ring, Part 2"

This is my second card-by-card design article for The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. This article gives some historical context to some of the card designs.

Week #1125 (July 3, 2023) – "Stepping Into the Ring, Part 3"

This is my third card-by-card design article for The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. I went over the design history of Gandalf the Grey; Nazgûl; and Reprieve.

Week #1126 (July 11, 2023) – "Chain of Commander Masters"

This is my preview article for Commander Masters. I introduced the designers and went through the set's design history. The central theme of the article is about what it takes to build a set that's focused on capturing the feeling of Commander in Limited.

Week #1127 (July 17, 2023) – "Commander Masters Storyteller, Part 1"

This is part one of my Commander Masters card-by-card stories. As Commander Masters is all reprints, I got the chance to tell some design stories from across the years. I picked some very fun ones.

Week #1128 (July 23, 2023) – "Commander Masters Storyteller, Part 2"

This is part two of my Commander Masters card-by-card design stories from across the history of Magic.

Week #1129 (July 31, 2023) – "State of Design 2023"

Every year, I do an article going over the last year of Magic sets, walking through how they did, discussing what players liked and didn't like, and reviewing what we learned. I've been writing this article since I became head designer, and it's quite popular.

This column talks about Dominaria United, Unfinity, The Brothers' War, Phyrexia: All Will Be One, March of the Machine, and March of the Machine: The Aftermath, as well as my thoughts on overall Magic design for the previous year. If you've never read any of my "State of Design" articles, I recommend giving them a look, as they're a good insight into Magic design. There are links to all the past installments in this article.

Week #1130 (August 7, 2023) – "Lessons Learned, Part 5"

This is the fourth article in my "Lessons Learned" series. In it, I talk about a key lesson I learned from designing each of the following sets: Unstable, Dominaria, Guilds of Ravnica, Ravnica Allegiance, and War of the Spark.

Week #1131 (August 15, 2023) – "Wilds Story, Part 1"

This is my first preview article for Wilds of Eldraine. I introduced the Exploratory Design and Vision Design teams and talked about the vision design of the set. I also explored the mechanical elements from Throne of Eldraine that we wanted to use for Wilds of Eldraine and how we came up with the fairy-tale draft archetypes. I also walked through how we chose each of those fairy tales.

Week #1132 (August 21, 2023) – "Wilds Story, Part 2"

This is my second preview article for Wilds of Eldraine. I introduced the Set Design team and went over the set design process. I explained how Roles were fleshed out and walked through the other mechanical elements and how they changed. I also spent time reviewing the fairy-tale draft archetypes and Set Design's approach to handling them.

Week #1133 (August 28, 2023) – "Wilds of Eldraine Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 1"

This is part one of Wilds of Eldraine's vision design handoff document. Most handoffs I share are for sets where I led the Vision Design team and are written by me. Wilds of Eldraine's Vision Design team was led by Chris Mooney, who wrote this document. This lets you see how a different lead approaches the document. However, I still do the annotating.

Week #1134 (September 4, 2023) – "Wilds of Eldraine Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 2"

This is part two of Wilds of Eldraine's vision design handoff document. It focused on the ten fairy-tale draft archetypes.

Week #1135 (September 11, 2023) – "Wilds Blue Yonder, Part 1"

This is the first half of my two-part series of card-by-card design stories from Wilds of Eldraine. This article leans into telling the larger historical context of card designs.

Week #1136 (September 18, 2023) – "Wilds Blue Yonder, Part 2"

This is part two of the card-by-card design stories from Wilds of Eldraine. This article is more of a design evolution article where I show how the cards changed as they went through design.

Week #1137 (September 25, 2023) – "Ten Stories Tall"

This article shows how five of the ten fairy-tale archetypes were a key part of the larger story with Kellan. I went over the story and showed off all the cards that relate to the story. If you are a fan of Magic stories and like seeing how we weave them into the cards, this article is for you.

Week #1138 (October 3, 2023) – "The Challenges of Making Universes Beyond"

This was my preview article for the Magic: The Gathering® – Doctor Who™ Commander decks. Gavin went over the design process in his own article, so I used my article to walk through the many challenges that come from adapting another property to Magic design, using Doctor Who Commander decks as an example. Adapting existing material is very different than working with the Magic Multiverse, as we have full control over the settings and flavor of our Multiverse. This article does a good job of walking through what challenges we face, the advantages we have, and how exactly we design Universes Beyond sets.

Week #1139 (October 9, 2023) – "Lessons Learned, Part 6"

This is part six of my "Lessons Learned" series. In this article, I walked through the lessons I learned in leading the design of Throne of Eldraine, Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, Zendikar Rising, and Strixhaven: School of Mages.

Week #1140 (October 16, 2023) – "What Are Play Boosters?"

I often use my columns to explain new things in Magic design. This time, I introduced the Play Booster, a new type of booster that combined the Limited gameplay of Draft Boosters with the excitement of Set Boosters. I went over the reasons why we decided to stop making Draft and Set Boosters and started making Play Boosters. This announcement was made about six months before Play Boosters debuted in Murders at Karlov Manor. These kinds of articles do a good job of walking the reader through how and why big changes are made.

Week #1141 (October 24, 2023) – "Going Underground, Part 1"

This was my first card preview article for The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. I introduced the Exploratory Design and Vision Design teams and went over the set's vision design process. This article is particularly interesting, as the set went through a large overhaul during set design, so most of what Vision Design worked on didn't make it to the final set.

Week #1142 (October 30, 2023) – "Going Underground, Part 2"

This was my second card preview article for The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. I introduced the Set Design team and went over the set design process. A lot happened during set design, including changing the setting from a new plane to Ixalan, so there are a lot of stories to tell.

Week #1143 (November 6, 2023) – "The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 1"

This is part one of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan's vision design handoff document. While the handoff documents are always interesting, this one talks about a version of the set that didn't make the final cut.

Week #1144 (November 13, 2023) – "The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 2"

This is part two of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan's vision design handoff document. I spend a lot of time talking about a colors-matter theme that didn't happen.

Week #1145 (November 20, 2023) – "Odds & Ends: 2023, Part 1"

"Odds & Ends" is a mailbag series where I answer reader questions. I used to do one or two for every release, but as Magic increased the number of its releases, I couldn't fit them in. This is my mailbag article for the year, answering questions about the premier sets of 2023 (Phyrexia: All Will Be One, March of the Machine, Wilds of Eldraine, and The Lost Caverns of Ixalan). Because I got so many good questions, I made it a two-parter. I really enjoy these articles, as they let me address the things players care about.

Week #1146 (November 27, 2023) – "Odds & Ends: 2023, Part 2"

This is part two of 2023's iteration of "Odds & Ends." It covers all sorts of topics about the premier sets of the year.

Week #1147 (December 4, 2023) – "Lessons Learned, Part 7"

This is part seven of my "Lessons Learned" series. In this article, I talked about the lessons learned from leading the design of Innistrad: Crimson Vow, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, and Unfinity.

Week #1148 (December 12, 2023) – "City Highlights, Part 1"

This is my Ravnica Remastered preview article. Rather than talking about Ravnica Remastered, I discussed the influence of the Ravnica: City of Guilds block. That includes things we introduced in Ravnica: City of Guilds that went on to become staples of Magic design, such as equal treatment of color pairs, hybrid mana, and multicolor factions. There are so many things that are owed to Ravnica that I needed two articles to talk about them all.

Week #1149 (December 18, 2023) – "City Highlights, Part 2"

I walk through more design innovations from Ravnica: City of Guilds. Namely, the color pie philosophy for two-color pairs, the flavor of archetypes, watermarks, and visual iconography. I also talked about how the set encouraged R&D to more strongly push boundaries.

Weeks #1150 and #1151 (December 25, 2023 to January 1, 2024) – Vacation Week

During the holidays, I normally take a couple weeks off of writing.

Week #1152 (January 8, 2024) – "Why So Many Restrictions?"

There was a question I was getting a lot on my Tumblr blog:

I've noticed that R&D is adding a lot more restrictions to cards these days, with things like "activate only as a sorcery," "only once per turn," and so on. Why are you doing this?

I thought this was an important topic and that it deserved an article. In the article, I discussed the role of restrictions and how they were used in early Magic design. Then, I went over how our use of them has changed. If you like meaty philosophical design talk, this article is for you.

Week #1153 (January 16, 2024) – "Getting Away with Murders at Karlov Manor, Part 1"

This was my first Murders at Karlov Manor card preview article. I introduced the Exploratory Design and Vision Design teams and went over how the set came to be. This article focused on old mechanics that we chose to bring back or tweak, with a particular focus on morph becoming disguise. I also talked about the origin of the "murder mystery Magic set" idea, which we came up with during the Weatherlight Saga.

Week #1154 (January 22, 2024) – "Getting Away with Murders at Karlov Manor, Part 2"

This was my second Murders at Karlov Manor card preview article. I introduce the Set Design team and went over the creation of the set's new mechanics, most of which came from trying to capture top-down elements of the murder mystery subgenre.

Week #1155 (January 29, 2024) – "Only Murders That We're Building, Part 1"

This was my first card-by-card design article for Murders at Karlov Manor. This one is a mix of two different types of card-by-card design stories: broad historical context and card evolution through design.

Week #1156 (February 5, 2024) – "Only Murders That We're Building, Part 2"

This was my second card-by-card design article for Murders at Karlov Manor. This one walked through how the cards evolved during the design.

Week #1157 (February 12, 2024) – "The History of Hybrid, Part 1"

As one of Magic's historians, especially about the evolution of design technology, I occasionally write an article that explores how a certain mechanical aspect of Magic was created and its uses in different sets, explaining the evolution that's happened along the way. This time, I talked about my favorite mechanical component that I designed: hybrid mana.

Week #1158 (February 20, 2024) – "Game On"

This was my preview article for the Magic: The Gathering® – Fallout® Commander decks. Annie Sardelis, the set design lead, wrote about the set's design, so I chose to talk about the challenges of adapting a video game property to Magic, using Fallout for all my examples. This is a similar article to my Doctor Who article, except I focused on the particular challenges of adapting a video game versus something like a movie, novel, or TV series.

Week #1159 (February 26, 2024) – "The History of Hybrid, Part 2"

This is part two of the history of hybrid mana.

Week #1160 (March 4, 2024) – "Nuts & Bolts #16: Play Boosters"

This is my annual "Nuts & Bolts" article written to help players design their own Magic sets. The skeleton of Magic sets was adapted for Play Boosters, so this article gets into the nitty-gritty of what changed. Even if you aren't designing your own set, this particular article does a good job of helping explain how Play Boosters have affected Magic design.

Week #1161 (March 11, 2024) – "Looking Back, Part 1"

This is part one of a series I did looking back at each year of Magic design and choosing the best design elements from that year. If you're a fan of Magic design or history, this is a good read. This article covers 1993 through 2008.

Week #1162 (March 18, 2024) – "Looking Back, Part 2"

This is part two of a series I did looking back at each year of Magic design and choosing the best design elements from that year. This article covers 2009 through 2023.

Week #1163 (March 26, 2024) – "Outlaws of the Land, Part 1"

This was my first preview article for Outlaws of Thunder Junction. I introduced the Exploratory Design and Vision Design teams and walked through the design of the set. This article is interesting as I went more in depth on the development of the early flavorful elements. This includes a bunch of material from early brainstorms about how to capture the flavor of villains.

Week #1164 (April 1, 2024) – "Outlaws of the Land, Part 2"

This was my second preview article for Outlaws of Thunder Junction. I introduced the Set Design team and walked through how we came up with mechanics to capture the feeling of the Western genre.

Week #1165 (April 8, 2024) – "Outlaws of Thunder Junction Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 1"

This is part one of Outlaws of Thunder Junction's vision design handoff document. Unlike The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, the handoff from Vision Design is pretty close to the final set. You can see early incarnations of crimes and plot here

Week #1166 (April 15, 2024) – "Outlaws of Thunder Junction Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 2"

This is part two of Outlaws of Thunder Junction's vision design handoff document. Here, I went over spree, outlaws, Mercenaries, Deserts, and the draft archetypes. Interestingly, this part talks about the initial version of riding a creature we'd developed before taking saddle from Aetherdrift's Vision Design team.

Week #1167 (April 22, 2024) – "Bringing the Thunder, Part 1"

This is my first card-by-card design article for Outlaws of Thunder Junction. This is another look at the evolution of specific cards through design.

Week #1168 (April 29, 2024) – "Bringing the Thunder, Part 2"

This is my second card-by-card design article for Outlaws of Thunder Junction. This article looks at the evolution of The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride ; Rakdos, the Muscle; and Riku of Many Paths.

Week #1169 (May 6, 2024) – "Like Father, Like Son"

This article is very personal to me. My father, Gene Rosewater, passed away in March of 2023. This article is my tribute to him where I shared many of the lessons I learned from him, all things that shaped me as a person and as a game designer.

Week #1170 (May 13, 2024) – "The Rabiah Scale, Part 3"

One of the many things to come out of my Tumblr blog, Blogatog, is a series of different scales (the most famous one being the Storm Scale) where I give my best guess of how likely something is to return to a premier set. The Rabiah Scale is about how likely we are to return to a specific plane in a premier set. I wrote a two-part series on the Rabiah Scale back in 2018 where I went through every plane we'd visited in a premier set and rated how likely we were to return. We'd made enough new planes since 2018 that it was time to do part three, talking about the potential premier return of each of the planes. I discussed Arcavios (home of Strixhaven), Eldraine, Ikoria, Kaldheim, Kylem, New Capenna, and Thunder Junction.

Week #1171 (May 21, 2024) – "Third Time's the Charm, Part 1"

This is my first card preview article for Modern Horizons 3. I introduced the Vision Design team for the set and went into the history of double-faced cards, a major part of Modern Horizons 3.

Week #1172 (May 27, 2024) – "Third Time's the Charm, Part 2"

This is my second card preview article for Modern Horizons 3. I introduced the Set Design team and talked about the history of the other major mechanical themes in the set: colorless mana and energy.

Week #1173 (June 3, 2024) – "Expanding Your Horizons: Eldrazi"

This is the first article of two on the card-by-card design stories from Modern Horizons 3. The first installment focused on the designs of the Eldrazi, which were a major theme in the set.

Week #1174 (June 10, 2024) – "Expanding Your Horizons: Energy"

This is the second article of card-by-card design stories from Modern Horizons 3. In this article, I went over the design of several energy cards.

Week #1175 (June 18, 2024) – "Creed Is Good"

This is my Magic: The Gathering® – Assassin's Creed® card preview article. I walked through the challenges of bringing the Assassin's Creed franchise to Magic.

Week #1176 (June 24, 2024) – "Trivial Pursuit: More or Less"

I'm a huge fan of Magic trivia, so I'll sometimes write a trivia article as part of my "Trivial Pursuit" series. This one contains 20 questions where I give you two items and you have to pick which one there is more of. As an example, are there more sets starting with the letter M than S, or are there less? You can answer each one as you go along and then click to see the answer. If you don't want to do the quiz, you can still read through the answers for some Magic history.

Week #1177 (July 1, 2024) – Vacation Week

Wizards of the Coast gets a week off in the summer, so there was no new article this week.

Week #1178 (July 9, 2024) – "The Bloom of the Burrow, Part 1"

This is my first card preview article for Bloomburrow. I introduced the Exploratory Design and Vision Design teams. Then, I went over the early design of Bloomburrow. I talked about how we decided which version of an anthropomorphic animal plane we wanted to go with and how we figured out which animal each two-color pair would be.

Week #1179 (July 15, 2024) – "The Bloom of the Burrow, Part 2"

This is my second card preview article for Bloomburrow. I introduced the Set Design team and walked through how all the mechanics came to be.

Week #1180 (July 22, 2024) – "Bloomburrow Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 1"

This is the first part of Bloomburrow's vision design handoff document. This document was written by Doug Beyer, as he led the vision design for the set. As always, I wrote the annotations.

Week #1181 (July 29, 2024) – "Bloomburrow Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 2"

This is the second part of Bloomburrow's vision design handoff document. The most interesting thing here is a mechanic we called fellowship that was the Vision Design team's attempt at a typal glue mechanic. It didn't end up making it to print. You can see what we proposed and my explanation for why it didn't happen.

Week #1182 (August 5, 2024) – "Bloomburrow Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 3"

This is the third part of Bloomburrow's vision design handoff document. This third section examines a bunch of smaller mechanics that we pitched as possible add-ons if the set needed them.

Week #1183 (August 12, 2024) – "Stages of Design"

In my very first "State of Design" article, I walked through what I felt were the four stages of Magic design. Well, many years later, we've reached what I believe is the seventh stage of design. In this article, I define each stage and walk through the defining quality and design innovations that came out of each. I think this will be a fun read for those interested in the history of Magic design.

Week #1184 (August 19, 2024) – "State of Design 2024"

It's time for another "State of Design" article. This time, I covered the Magic year of 2023–2024 (The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, Wilds of Eldraine, The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Murders at Karlov Manor, Outlaws of Thunder Junction, and Modern Horizons 3) and, as always, talked about the highlights and lessons of Magic's overall designs.

Week #1185 (August 26, 2024) – "The Council of Colors, Revisited"

In August of 2016, I wrote an article introducing the Council of Colors. Many years had gone by, and much had changed, so I revisited the topic in a column filling in what had happened with the council and its members since 2016.

Week #1186 (September 2, 2024) – "Top of the Duskmourning, Part 1"

This was my first Duskmourn: House of Horror card preview article. I introduced the Exploratory Design and Vision Design teams, then talked about the challenges of designing a top-down modern horror set. We spent a lot of time iterating on the mechanic that would become Rooms, and this article does a good job of walking through that process, complete with pictures we made along the way. It also talks about other enchantment elements of the set.

Week #1187 (September 9, 2024) – "Top of the Duskmourning, Part 2"

This was my second Duskmourn: House of Horror card preview article. I introduced the Set Design team and went over all the changes that happened during set design. I discussed the creation and evolution of manifest dread and how the graveyard theme was added.

Week #1188 (September 16, 2024) – "Duskmourn: House of Horror Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 1"

This is the first part of Duskmourn: House of Horror's vision design handoff document. This document was written by Annie Sardelis, the vision design lead of Duskmourn: House of Horror, and annotated by me. This first part talks about manifest dread, then called manifest evil, and possess, a mechanic that didn't make it to print.

Week #1189 (September 23, 2024) – "Duskmourn: House of Horror Vision Design Handoff Document, Part 2"

This is the second part of Duskmourn: House of Horror's vision design handoff document. It discusses the handoff version of Rooms and walks through various other mechanics that didn't make it to print, although you can see their influence on what did.

Week #1190 (September 30, 2024) – "Odds & Ends: 2024, Part 1"

This is the first part of my two-part "Odds & Ends" mailbag article for the past year's premier sets (Murders at Karlov Manor, Outlaws of Thunder Junction, Bloomburrow, and Duskmourn: House of Horror). As always, I get a lot of interesting questions.

Week #1191 (October 7, 2024) – "Odds & Ends: 2024, Part 2"

This is the second part of my two-part "Odds & Ends" mailbag columns for the 2024 premier sets (Murders at Karlov Manor, Outlaws of Thunder Junction, Bloomburrow, and Duskmourn: House of Horror). Fun fact: did you know Ashiok was considered for Duskmourn: House of Horror?

Week #1192 (October 14, 2024) – "The History of Two-in-Ones, Part 1"

This is the first part of a two-part series on the history of what I dubbed "two-in-ones." These are cards that represent two distinct cards in the form of a single card. I defined two-in-ones as having two distinct names on the card. I went over some of the inspirations for these, the first two-in-ones, split cards, and so on.

Week #1193 (October 21, 2024) – "The History of Two-in-Ones, Part 2"

This is the second part of a two-part series on the history of two-in-ones. This article starts with meld in Eldritch Moon and ends with Rooms in Duskmourn: House of Horror.

Week #1194 (October 28, 2024) – "Starting with a Good Foundations, Part 1"

This is my first card preview article for Magic: The Gathering Foundations. I talked about the many things a new Magic player has to learn and gave a history of introductory products for Magic. I explained the various lessons we learned from each of those. Finally, I introduced the Foundations Set Design team, as the set didn't have a vision design team.

Week #1195 (November 4, 2024) – "Starting with a Good Foundations, Part 2"

This is my second card preview article for Foundations. In it, I talked about the Foundations product suite, including the Beginner Box, Foundations Jumpstart, the Starter Collection, and the Foundations main set.

Week #1196 (November 11, 2024) – "Building Foundations: Something Old"

This was my first Foundations card-by-card design article. This one goes over the origin of some of the set's iconic reprints.

Week #1197 (November 18, 2024) – "Building Foundations: Something New"

This was my second Foundations card-by-card design article, this time going over some new cards. I discussed the design of Curator of Destinies; Hare Apparent; and Zul Ashur, Lich Lord.

Week #1198 (November 25, 2024) – "Lessons Learned, Part 8"

This is the eighth installment in my "Lessons Learned" series. This article looks at the lessons I learned from leading the designs of Phyrexia: All Will Be One and March of the Machine.

Week #1199 (December 2, 2024) – "Design Files: Tempest, Part 1"

This is the start of a new series called "Design Files." This article is part one of three. In it, I looked at a handoff file from a set I led the design for, in this case, Tempest, which was the very first set I led. I compared the handoff versions of various cards to the ones that made it to print. This first part looks at Slivers, Wasteland, Ancient Tomb, Humility, Cursed Scroll, Scroll Rack, Grindstone, Altar of Dementia, Coffin Queen, Time Warp, Apocalypse, Harrow, and Winds of Rath.

Week #1200 (December 9, 2024) – "Design Files: Tempest, Part 2"

This is second of "Design Files: Tempest." In it, I looked at the handoff versions of Scragnoth, Searing Touch, Krakilin, Shadow Rift, Nurturing Licid, Spirit Mirror, Death Pits of Rath, Kindle, Recycle, Shimmering Wings, Jinxed Idol, Aluren, and Booby Trap. The second section, which begins in this article, looks at a bunch of card designs that didn't make it to print (at least not in Tempest).

The Hundred

That wraps up another hundred weeks of Making Magic. As always, I like to use my "Hundred and Counting" articles to thank all the people who help me put Making Magic together each week, so a thanks to Kendall, Adam, and Jubilee for all that they do. And thanks to you, my readers, for tuning in every week.

I'm eager for any feedback on today's article, my ratings, or any article I talked about. You can email me or contact me through social media accounts (X, Tumblr, Instagram, Bluesky, and TikTok).

Join me next week for the design handoff from Khans of Tarkir.

Until then, may you find the Making Magic article that most appeals to you.