Armus wrote: ↑Fri Jan 27, 2023 10:31 amTo summarize it in one sentence: The Process era model was to make cards based on what the game needed...
Designers are always trying to give the players things they want and give the game cards it needs. But
what the game needs is usually not a matter of objective truth - ask three different designers what the game needs and you'll often get four different answers.
I worked as a designer on sets 41, 43, 44, 47, and 49. I also designed on sets 50, 52, 53, and 55 (I don't count my artistic work on sets 54 or 59 for this discussion because those sets contained no new cards). I think this experience working in both the 40s and 50s gives me a pretty good perspective on similarities and differences between the two sets that followed "The Process" and the rest. I also worked on both of the only two sets to follow "The Process."
"The Process"
- A pre-determined set-cap of 27 cards was established.
- Designers made pitches for themes with a few accompanying rough card ideas that could be executed in 27 cards (see below).
- John picked the themes he liked and asked for two teams of designers to work on them.
- Each team came up with a submission of 27 cards. Each team's work was reviewed and playtested.
- Based partially on testing data and partially on personal evaluation, John picked the "winning" submission. That team would get 18 of their cards into the final set of 27.
- John picked 9 of the "runner-up" team's 27 cards to include in the remaining slots.
- He asked for feedback from both teams before making his decision on what cards to cut from each submission.
Only the
The Nth Degree and
Symbiosis followed every aspect of that list.
For all the other sets in the 40s and 50s, designers made pitches and the design director picked which he liked. There were no A and B teams competing, except for Shattered Mirror, which exceeded the 27-card cap (that cap wouldn't be imposed again until sets 51 and 52). There were no pre-determined set caps, except for Warp Pack: Access Denied, which was supposed to be the first in a series of 9-card sets, none of the rest of which got developed, but that set did not have competing teams.
So, essentially, when you say you're comparing sets that followed "The Process" with all other sets, you're really comparing two sets to eighteen sets, not ten to ten.