The other day, someone on my blog asked about the Council of Colors. I'd referenced them in some answers, and this person was curious as to what I was talking about. I gave them the link to my article on the Council of Colors. It was from August of 2016, a year into the life of the council, and I revealed its existence to the world for the first time. While the article was a nice introduction, it's pretty dated. A lot has changed with the Council of Colors in the last eight years, enough so that I felt it was time to update you all on it. So, what has changed?

Before I get to what's new, let me explain what the Council of Colors is. When Richard Garfield created Magic: The Gathering, he designed three genius ideas: the concept of a collectible card game, the mana system, and the color pie. While I adore the first two, my true love is the color pie. I have been a fan of the color pie since I first laid eyes on the game. When I came to Wizards back in 1995, I made it a major focus of my work.

A lot of our focus at the time was to clean up larger systems of Magic. One of the issues with early Magic concerned how cards were designed in a vacuum rather than as part of a broader system. The way in which the rules worked on one card didn't necessarily carry over to other cards. Two cards could work the same but have different templates. Additionally, the color pie was wildly inconsistent.

This led to the creation of the Sixth Edition rules, which added the stack and cleaned up a lot of messiness in the rules. It also created standards for templating. That way, if two cards had a similar function, they used the same words in their rules text. My focus was on cleaning up the color pie so that it was consistent from set to set. Colors needed to have strengths and weaknesses. We had to stop printing cards that gave colors answers to their weaknesses

For many years, one of my jobs was to look at every set and ensure we weren't damaging the color pie. I wasn't always successful, as I didn't have authority to force changes, but I stopped my share of cards that either broke the color pie or bent it in unhealthy ways. Eventually, a combination of me becoming head designer and us making more sets made my ability to monitor cards impossible. I was particularly bad at catching designs from supplemental sets that I didn't work on.

Designer Mark Gottlieb was the person who pitched the idea of creating a team to oversee the color pie rather than just one person. Each color would be assigned a counselor who would be responsible for overseeing that color. They would look at every new design in that color and be able to make comments on it if they felt it was doing something it shouldn't. I oversaw the team, along with Gottlieb, and each color had a counselor, making the initial team seven people. We would soon add an eighth role: the colorless counselor.

The Council of Colors, a name we came up with in the first meeting, would meet once a week and look at every set. This started in 2015, and I introduced the council to the world in my 2016 article. A lot has changed since then, so let's talk about it.

The People

In the article, I introduced the six color counselors, one for each color and for colorless, and the two of us who oversaw the team:

White: Jackie Lee
Blue: Ethan Fleischer
Black: Gavin Verhey
Red: Shawn Main
Green: Ken Nagle
Colorless: Jules Robins
Overseers: Mark Gottlieb and myself

These eight were the original members of the Council of Colors. Eight years later, none of them, save for Gottlieb and myself, are still on the Council of Colors. Some left Wizards while others ended up having responsibilities which forced them to leave the team. Here are the changes that happened:

Red: Shawn Main → Jules Robin
Colorless: Jules Robins → Peter Lee

Shawn left Wizards, so there was a vacancy in red. Jules was interested in stepping up to become the counselor for red. This started our tradition of the colorless counselor being the introductory slot to the team. When a vacancy opened, they had first dibs at taking the role. We would then fill the vacancy with another designer. In this case, Peter Lee, who had joined Magic R&D from Dungeons & Dragons R&D, joined as the colorless counselor.

White: Jackie Lee → Peter Lee
Colorless: Peter Lee → Corey Bowen

Jackie left Wizards, so Peter became the counselor for white. Corey Bowen, who turned a summer internship into a full-time job in Magic R&D joined as the colorless counselor.

Administrator: Vacant → Eli Shiffrin

When we started the Council of Colors, we didn't have any administrative support. It was at this point that Eli Shiffrin, then rules manager, volunteered for the role. It proved invaluable. There is a lot of stuff we have to look at, so it was good to have someone coordinate it all.

White: Peter Lee → Andrew Veen

When Peter left Wizards, Corey didn't feel ready yet to step into a color, so we had Andrew Veen, who had moved into Magic R&D from Duel Masters R&D, join directly as the counselor for white. This was the first time since the beginning that someone became a color counselor without first training as the colorless counselor.

Black: Gavin Verhey → Corey Bowen
Colorless: Corey Bowen → Ari Nieh

Gavin had a bunch of other responsibilities added to his plate, so he stepped away from being the counselor for black and Corey stepped up into the slot. Ari Nieh, the winner of Great Designer Search 3, became the new colorless counselor.

White: Andrew Veen → Ari Nieh
Colorless: Ari Nieh → Chris Mooney
Administrator: Eli Shiffrin → Chris Mooney

Andrew left Wizards, so Ari became the counselor for white. Chris Mooney, another finalist in Great Designer Search 3, joined the team as the colorless counselor. Eli Shiffrin left Wizards, so Chris also took on the administrator role, as the colorless counselor usually has less to do.

Green: Ken Nagle → Chris Mooney

When Ken left, Chris Mooney stepped up to become the counselor for green. We were in the process of finding the new colorless counselor when …

White: Ari Nieh → Chris Mooney
Green: Chris Mooney → Megan Smith
Colorless: Vacant → Ben Weitz
Administrator: Mary Kathryn Amiotte

Ari left Wizards, leaving us with a vacancy in white and colorless. Chris was interested in being the counselor for white, so they shifted over. Megan Smith, from the Casual Play Design team, joined directly as the counselor for green. Ben Weitz from the Play Design team became the colorless counselor. Colorless has a lot to do with rate, so we liked the idea of trying out a play designer in the role. We also decided it was time to get an administrator that wasn't a color counselor, so Mary Kathryn Amiotte, one of R&D's producers, took over the role.

Blue: Ethan Fleischer → Jules Robins
Red: Jules Robins → Ben Weitz
Colorless: Ben Weitz → Adam Prosak

Some colors, like white, fluxtuated heavily, but others hadn't ever changed their counselor, so I instituted a new rule. To keep perspectives fresh, I want to occasionally rotate who had what color. Whenever a rotation happened, it would only involve two counselors to keep some continuity, and it would always be the two people who had served the longest on a current color. For the first switch, that meant Ethan Fleischer and Jules Robins swapping blue and red, respectively. When this happened, Ethan decided it was time to bow out of the council. He had been overseeing Universes Beyond sets and had a lot on his plate. Ben Weitz stepped up to become the counselor for red. Adam Prosak, one of the set designers, joined as the colorless counselor.

Administrator: Mary Kathryn Amiotte → Sara Mox

Mary Kathryn got more on her plate and the role of administrator passed to Sara Mox, the manager for the Casual Play Design team.

White: Chris Mooney → Corey Bowen
Black: Corey Bowen → Chris Mooney

The next swap was white and black, as Corey had long been the counselor for black, and Chris had been on white longer than Megan had been on green.

Blue: Jules Robins → Megan Smith
Green: Megan Smith → Adam Prosak
Colorless: Adam Prosak → Daniel Xu

Jules left Wizards. Normally, the colorless counselor would step into the open role, but Adam was interested in being the green counselor and Megan was fine moving to blue. Daniel Xu, a vision and set designer, joined as the colorless counselor.

Administrator: Sara Mox → Nicolette Dunks

Sara changed teams at Wizards, so the role went to Nicolette Dunks, another one of R&D's producers.

And that, catches us up to date. Here's a shortened version of who has held every role:

White: Jackie Lee → Peter Lee → Andrew Veen → Ari Nieh → Chris Mooney → Corey Bowen
Blue: Ethan Fleischer → Jules Robins → Megan Smith
Black: Gavin Verhey → Corey Bowen → Chris Mooney
Red: Shawn Main → Jules Robins → Ben Weitz
Green: Ken Nagle → Chris Mooney → Megan Smith → Adam Prosak
Colorless: Jules Robins → Peter Lee → Corey Bowen → Ari Nieh → Ben Weitz → Andrew Prosak → Daniel Xu
Administrator: Eli Shiffrin → Chris Mooney → Mary Kathryn Amiotte → Sara Mox → Nicolette Dunks
Overseers: Mark Gottlieb and myself (the one constant on the Council of Colors)

Responsibilities

The Council of Colors's initial goal was to be a source that could observe all the cards being created and ensure we weren't allowing inappropriate cards to make it to print. That goal continues, but we've taken on other responsibilities in addition.

Oversee color pie shifts

While the core philosophies of the colors don't change, there's ebb and flow to their execution. The overall environment of the game shifts with time, and the color pie has to adapt to it. A good example of this would be the rising dominance of the Commander format.

When the Commander format was first created, few were concerned with color pie balance. It was a casual format created by Magic players who were just trying to make something that was fun to play. But, as the format grew and shared a larger percentage of gameplay, the color pie imbalance became a greater issue.

Most Constructed formats have two players who each start at 20 life. Commander normally has four, and players start at 40 life, meaning strategies that are more aggressively focused suffer in Commander. Two of the colors, red and white, are more focused on these strategies, and became problematic in Commander. Red and white cards were being played in less decks.

The Council of Colors took on the responsibility of deciding what resources red and white needed to function better in Commander. Then, we spent time brainstorming how to provide those abilities in a way that was natural to the color. For example, let's look at card draw. Red and white are fourth and fifth, respectively, in card drawing. The Council of Colors spent time figuring out how red and white could draw cards, then slowly introduced that into the game. Red gained "impulsive draw," exiling cards that you could play for an amount of time. White got more card-drawing build-arounds limited to one card per turn, making white's card draw more about a long game. Each color got card draw, but in a way that matched the feel of the color.

Address set design and play design concerns

The Council of Colors is also a place for designers who feel they've run into trouble with the current state of abilities. A good example of this was a desire from Play Design to have better combat options for blue creatures. The suite of creature mechanics for blue were mostly about evasion, and they were eager for something else. The Council of Colors examined the options and walked Play Design through what changes could be made. In the end, the decision was to make blue secondary in vigilance.

A similar thing happened where Set Design was concerned that black had too many restrictions on noncreature removal. Black was unable to destroy two different card types: artifacts and enchantments. The Council of Colors examined the issue, realized we could allow black some enchantment removal, then set a path forward to have black be tertiary in enchantment removal.

Find new additions to colors

The Council of Colors also works on filling gaps, such as trying to find unique strategies for higher-rarity red cards. Red is the narrowest color when it comes to unique effects, so the Council of Colors spent time in meetings brainstorming what spaces red could explore that would offer new effects while still feeling true to red. This exercise was expanded into a hackathon topic, in which we found a number of new effects that we'll be trying out in future sets.

Create write-ups of current design philosophy

The Council of Colors will address a specific topic, then the counselor of that color will create a write-up for all of R&D to read. Recent examples would be examining what access green should have to card draw and how to differentiate white, blue, and red's interaction with artifacts.

Thinking long term about the direction of the colors

In addition to our weekly meeting, the Council of Colors has a channel to talk through issues and discuss topics regarding new mechanics and new effects that don't currently have a color, and to talk about what shifts we might want to make as design evolves. Our goals are to ensure printed cards match the color pie and colors are properly evolving over time in a way that stays true to their core philosophies.

The Process

The other major change we've made over the last eight years concerns how the council operates on a logistical level.

Increased the number of looks at a set

In the 2016 article, I talked about how we made sure to look at every product once in its life cycle. Since then, we've realized that booster sets need a second look. Here's how it works: Each set is brought to the Council of Colors once during late vision design. We examine the set's mechanics and themes, noting areas of concern. For example, we had a recent set that was focused on an existing token in a color that hadn't had it before. The effect of that token and the color weren't perfectly aligned, so we talked through what the set would need to do if they wanted to keep that token in that color. This included defining limits for how often it would appear and how it would be executed.

The second look happens later in set design. This is a card-by-card examination where each card is looked at by its respective color counselor. Multicolor cards are examined by all counselors of the relevant colors.

Changed the process by how we review cards

During the second pass, the design team then makes two types of notes:

Discussion – These are cards that need to be brought to the meeting and talked through.

Quick checks – These are cards that the counselor doesn't have an issue with printing but raise issues they would like to talk through with the team.

We then have a meeting with the set's lead designer. We talk through the discussion cards, and, if time allows, all the quick checks. The set's lead designer can ask questions, and the Council of Colors can provide suggestions of how to accomplish the goals of the card without causing the color issue in question. Coming out of the meeting, we give each card one of four ratings:

Fine – This rating means the card can stay as is. Nothing needs to change about it. Most quick checks get a fine rating.

Second Look – This rating means the Council of Colors has some concern about it. They'd like the team to consider changes if viable, but if the card needs to stay as is, it can. Magic cards can have a lot of dependencies within a set, so the council understands that some cards, usually ones that are bends, need to be printed as is.

Strongly Reconsider – This rating means the Council of Colors strongly encourages that the team makes changes if possible but won't escalate things if the card is printed as is. There are times where cards have an important function and can't be simply fixed.

Must Change – This rating means this card design cannot remain as is. This design is usually a break or a severe bend that the Council of Colors feels would damage the color pie. These cards will get escalated if not changed, although they always are.

Increased looks at other designs

Not only do we examine tentpole releases more often, but we've expanded the scope of what we look at. Now, any product with original designs goes through the Council of Colors. This includes but is not limited to:

  • Booster products
  • Commander decks
  • Jumpstart products
  • Cards inside non-randomized products
  • New-to-Magic Secret Lair designs
  • Digital designs, such as Alchemy cards

Much like every card having to go through play design for balance, every card now must go through the Council of Colors for sign-off.

Color Me Impressed

Those are the various changes to the Council of Colors over the last eight years. I hope you enjoyed the update. As always, I'm eager to hear your thoughts on today's column or on the Council of Colors itself. You email me or contact me through any of my social media accounts (X, Blogatog, Instagram, and TikTok) with any feedback.

Join me next week when Duskmourn: House of Horror previews begin.

Until then, may you appreciate the color pie.