Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast

We spend a long time designing sets, constantly improving on every aspect possible. But how and when do we decide to step away? In this podcast, I explore the subject of perfectionism.

In this podcast, I talk about the basics of designing puzzles.

In this podcast, I look back at the advertising of the first ten years of Magic.

In this podcast, I sit down with Andrew Brown, co-lead set designer on Murders at Karlov Manor, to talk about the making of the set.

In this podcast, I pay tribute to longtime Magic designer Erik Lauer who recently retired.

In this podcast, I sit down with designer and puzzle-builder extraordinaire Mark Gottlieb to talk about the making of the puzzles for Murders at Karlov Manor.

In this podcast, I tell the design story of Murders at Karlov Manor.

In this podcast, I talk about many of the products we've introduced to help teach people how to play and walk through how our philosophy about it has changed over time.

In this podcast, I define the R&D expression "strictly better," discuss its history, and talk about why it's a thing we have to care about.

In this podcasts, I talk with Rules Manager Jess Dunks about how we go about making mechanics work that do things we've never done before.

I talk a lot about all the changes cards go through early in design. In this podcast, I interview Play Designer Ben Weitz to talk about the types of changes the Play Design team makes to cards late in the process.

In this podcast, I go through the process from start to finish of designing a Universes Beyond set.

Most of the time, we create the card design before we commission the art, but not always. In this podcast, I walk through when art comes before design and when we have to design to the art.

In this podcast, I talk all about Magic's fourth expansion.

This podcast is dedicated to mana cost. I talk about its history as well as the design space it offers designers.

Sometimes it can take a while to get a particular idea to print. This podcast shares some stories of things that took a while to get out to the public.

This podcast was inspired by a number of blog posts asking why we've been adding more restrictions to cards lately.

December 3 marked my 20th anniversary as Magic head designer, and this podcast tells the story of how that came to be. It's also filled with a lot of tips about how someone can work toward their own dream job.

How do we decide when to bring mechanics back? This podcast talks all about it.

Sometimes we make a mechanic and realize later that we could have done it better. This podcast talks about how we make new mechanics that are fixed versions of older ones.

In this podcast, I talk about a procedure we do called a Vision Design Summit.

In this podcast, I talk about how we design colorless cards.

This podcast is another in my "Lessons Learned" series where I talk about sets I led or co-led and explain the many lessons I learned while making them. This episode is about what I learned leading the design for Unfinity.

In this podcast, I sit down with Graphic Designer Daniel Holt to talk all about the making of expansion symbols.

In this podcast, I take an in-depth look at the current vision design process.