Study Session

The Mana Forge Digest

In this article, Mark Rosewater discusses the creation of Strixhaven: School of Mages and how his idea for an enemy-color set came together over time.

Key points

• Strixhaven was created from a collection of different ideas
• Enemy-color cards were initially thought to be rare in Magic sets
• Allies were designed as better than enemies in terms of quantity and power

What you get

• An overview of the creation process for Strixhaven: School of Mages
• Information on how enemy-color cards evolved over time in Magic sets
• Details about the design philosophy behind ally- and enemy-color cards

Why it matters

This article provides insight into Mark Rosewater's creative process and the evolution of Magic set designs, particularly focusing on Strixhaven: School of Mages.

Details

In 1995, when Mark first joined Wizards, enemy-color cards were thought to be rare. Allies were seen as colors that liked each other, while enemies had a core conflict with their allies

When Legends introduced multicolor cards, all two-color cards were ally-color cards and three-color cards were shards (a color and its two allies). There were no enemy two-color or wedge three-color cards

The next set, The Dark, was the first to include an enemy-color card. However, there were only a few of these in that set

Good to know

• Strixhaven: School of Mages is part of the Strixhaven block released in 2019
• Mark Rosewater's role as head designer at Wizards led to him finding and holding onto smaller ideas for future use

Read the original on Wizards (https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/study-session) • Source: Wizards of the Coast