Welcome To Number Pie Week!

Posted on February 27, 2009
Filed Under Articles, V. Wedge | 2 Comments

By Mark Rosewater

Special to The Magic Lampoon

You may have heard about the color pie, during the course of the several dozen articles I’ve written about it, but did you know that Wizards also designs cards around a number pie? Each number has its own feel, its own philosophy. Each number has number-related goals and desires. I rock each number to sleep at night to calm its number-related fears.

One thing I like to say every fifth sentence is that our design pie is in a constant state of flux. What might have cost three mana in the Urza’s block would now cost seven, for example. I’ll walk you through Wizards’ current philosophies for each of the game’s five main casting costs.

Pun-ce upon a time

One is the loneliest number. One is the number that nobody cares about, so it listens to emo music while updating its Facebook. One is where we put creatures that are in every way unspectacular, like Fugitive Wizard and Raging Goblin.  Notice that we usually make Ones part of a tribe, to help them feel like they belong somewhere, but of course it never works. At the end of the day, a Suntail Hawk is still just a Suntail Hawk. [Graphics department: now that we have photoshopped pictures in every article, this would be a great place to put a picture of a Hawk wearing black emo clothes and typing on a computer!]

Sometimes, because Ones are so lonely, they like to wear things that also cost one, so we try to make a lot of one-mana equipment for them, like Bonesplitter and Shuko. R&D wanted me to make Skullclamp cost more, but I insisted it be one mana, for flavor reasons. People complained about the cog interactions, but history will absolve me.

One’s greatest fear is that people will realize how small it is, so we made Giant Growth cost one. One’s greatest desire is to make other numbers small, so we also made Darkblast and Sicken cost one. If One were a Simpsons character, it would be Maggie, because she is approximately 1 year old.

For two-m the bell tolls

People have two hands, two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and two half-mouths that exist together in the form of one full mouth. Two represents unity, coming together, being twice the size of one and 0.67 the size of three. Mark Rosewater is two words long. For this last reason especially, I like the number two and force R&D to make all of the powerful cards cost two.

Tarmogoyf, Umezawa’s Jitte, Arcbound Ravager, Remand, Dark Confidant, Wild Mongrel, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Quirion Dryad … we really just like two better than any other number. It’s like the number equivalent of blue. I’ve said several times about how strongly I pushed for Wrath of God to be colorshifted to black, but that was actually my second idea.  My original goal was to numbershift Wrath of God to two.

O’er the land of the three, and the home of the brave

Three is a cold, hard stare in your face. It’s the minimum number of legs needed to support a table, unless there are just two really wide legs, or one really thick leg, or the table is affixed to a wall. Or hanging from the ceiling. Three has a long E sound, which is creepy sounding, so a lot of our black cards cost three. Like Necropotence, or Dauthi Marauder.

Three is also the color of not letting things happen. That’s a good ability, and good cards cost two, so we used to make Counterspell cost two, but when we realized the difference we changed it to three.

“Four!” (that was a pun for “fore,” like when you’re golfing)

We really don’t know what four represents. To us, four is just a number. So when we design cards that cost four, we just pack them full of more fours. Lightning Blast deals four damage. Faith’s Fetters gains four life. We don’t know what we’re doing. We even made Foresee scry for four. The precedent was set back in Antiquities with Su-Chi, and we’ve been running with it ever since.

Nettletooth Djinn is a 4/4 for four. So are Chameleon Colossus and Tower Gargoyle. Look at all the fours on Lava Hounds and Ravenous Baloth!

We really have no idea.

What’s a pop culture reference that represents the number four? I’m not sure! Four o’clock? Maybe the way a square has four sides. Once, when I was a kid, somebody called me four-eyes. Four is kind of like a number. Or a numeral.

Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ a-five

Five is wild, unrestrained thought. Five is passion personified. I’ve always considered myself a five. When I was a child I was a One, but now I’m a Five. Did I tell you about the time I had to sprint down the street carrying a swordfish? Classic Five behavior! Five is where we put ridiculous stuff that only hardcore Johnnies would use. Cards like Radiate, or Battle of Wits. (200 cards in their library? Not even I would use that! And I made a deck based around Sorrow’s Path, if you hadn’t heard!)

If a card might be fun to play, we make it cost five, no matter what the balanced cost would be. R&D tried telling me that Shirei, Shizo’s Caretaker would see more play at three mana, but I refused: it’s a fun effect, and people might like it, so let’s put it at five. Not on my watch will we print a card that’s both fun and fairly costed. If we had waited until the Alara block to print Varchild’s War-Riders, we would have made it cost five.

Join me next week when I talk about multi-numbered cards — cards whose casting cost are more than one number.  Cards like Iname as One, or Dregs of Sorrow.

Comments

2 Responses to “Welcome To Number Pie Week!”

  1. Amarsir on April 8th, 2011 8:01 pm

    I just saw this for the first time and it’s brilliant. You should flash it back.

  2. Barack Obama on October 11th, 2011 5:22 am

    Three will do anything to win.

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