Mag is coming for you!

This past Tuesday, Magtheridon's Lair released for the World of Warcraft TCG. Why is this significant? This was the first product that I was Lead Design on for the World of Warcraft TCG. It was fun to design, but stressful as well. Each Raid has a new game engine and it's a challenge to find the right balance between enough "newness" without too much of a departure from the regular game mechanics so that players can still learn/play it relatively easily.

There are some very cool card designs that I'm particularly proud of in this set. Fiery Pits deals 15 damage for just 2 cost, but the way that we could get away with that much damage for such a small cost was that the raiding players got to choose where the 15 damage went. They could spread it out amongst their heroes and allies. Giving players the choice of how they take the punishment is a common theme throughout the raid deck. This type of design usually doesn't work in a 1 on 1 match because there aren't that many decision points, but in multiplayer, it's interesting to see the raiding players work out what the best case is for the damage. Another card in that vein is Swath of Destruction. The boss player just wants to get an ally threat off the table. He doesn't care much about getting the bonus from the rest of the card, but the raiding players have to decide which player can afford to give up the correct resources without being hamstrung to much by the outcome.

Another thing that I'm proud of is the design/look of the channelers.
Summoner Channeler x2
Dark Mending Channeler
Shadow Channeler x2
If you notice, they don't have borders on some of the cards, that's because when you have all 5 out at the start of the game, they form -

I had this vision from the very start and I was glad that everyone could pull it off so well.
So that's it, I'm neck deep in Set 8 design, but it's nice to see something that I was lead on made it to print and it's good to see the reactions of players. Also, thanks again to those that helped me during design, you weren't forgotten (I suggest picking up a rulebook).