Designing Magic: the Gathering sets has always been something that has fascinated me, as there is so many considerations that go into every part of a card and of the set as a whole. But there has been this shift as of late that I have noticed, a difference in design philosophy in recent years. You see there are two core patterns for crafting a set, and those are top-down and bottom-up design. Or flavor first versus mechanics first, and in the last few years Magic has leaned more into top-down then it ever has in its history, but why is that?
It's a question I had to get to the bottom of, but I knew that before I could come to conclusion I should first have a better understanding these concepts, and really that's why I put this article together. As a way to not just uncover the complexities of these design principles, fascinating as they are, but to apply what I have learned to answer the very question that set me on this quest. In this article I will take you through what I have learned, of the surprises and depths of design, in hopes that together we can come to a conclusion. So join me as we talk the principles of top-down versus bottom-up design in Magic: the Gathering.
Contrast of Design
While top-down and bottom-up design are terms you will find all throughout different mediums and practices, from programming to architecture, their definitions change depending on the context. In the case of Magic: the Gathering top-down and bottom-up design is a reference to the entry point of conceptualizing a set. It's best to think of it like this, top-down is a way of designing a set that focuses on an idea rooted in flavor first, a concept that is either cultural or has some strong thematic resonance, while bottom-up is a design principle rooted in a mechanical theme that the designers wish to enact.
Examples of top-down sets would be Innistrad with its focus on Gothic horror tropes and stories, of Theros and its re-imagining of Greek mythology or Thunder Junction and its reliance on the famous tropes of spaghetti westerns. Bottom-up on the other hand is in many ways the default design pattern in Magic. Think of how the Original Zendikar block was a focus on land matters, Antiquities, an artifact focused set or of the original Ravnica block which was brought to life in order to give the game a strongly identified color pair set with a heavy focus on cycles.
This concept is best explained by Mark Rosewater himself during an episode of his drive to work podcast :
What Mark does by pointing out this connection is help us conceptualize these design principles at a granular level by using a card itself to help explain how this sort of design mindset plays out. It's a system we can use to help us understand how these two concepts works as a whole, so let's do an exercise with this in mind to really help us visualize how this works.
For an example let's use the card Piper of the swarm to explain the methodology behind top-down. Here is a card pulled from the fairy tale setting of Eldraine, which plays with the classic tale of the pied piper, and is by its very nature flavor first because it draws its identity from existing ideas and aims to replicate it with a twist. This means we begin at the top of the card, providing it a name that eludes to the story that inspired it which sets the context for the rest of the card.
Art is then applied which brings the character to life within its setting, and a creature type is chosen which would neatly place this character into a known box. From here the flavor is set and now the bottom of the card must work with the flavor provided. Which means rules text is written that give action to the themes that players would expect from a re-imagining of that story. As you can see by starting with the flavorful concept the subsequent parts of the card are filled out from the top first.
The reverse can be seen when we look to a card that was crafted in a bottom-up set. Take for instance Buried alive, a card from the Graveyard focused Odyssey block. This block introduced us to three new keywords that all interact with the graveyard, and as such cards which placed others into the graveyard was important to the cohesion of the set this card finds itself within. As such they started from the bottom, and designed a card which could target three creatures and send them to the grave, working with the intended synergies of the block. Once the idea was given shape through the rules text, they were then tasked with placing the flavor on top to match the intent of the mechanical identity. Thus buried alive, eluding the effect of the card which was established first.
What I am trying to show you with these examples is that the difference between top-down and bottom-up design is a matter approach or methodology, and really that's the best way to think of it. These design patterns are used as a practical way of starting your design, but then bridge into the rest of the card to form a complete product. This approach is then applied not just the card level but at the set or block level in order to create a complete experience, but I will talk about these facets of the approach in a bit.
Now I know my audience and I'm sure you've picked up on some things that I have not directly spoken to, some patterns and ideas inherent to these design philosophies. Hold onto those as we move into the next sections as this discussion will only get deeper as we go.
Resonance
At the heart of top-down design is the concept of Resonance, in that what a top-down set aims to do is meet the player where their expectations lie. What this means is that the designers wish to tap into established ideas whether real or fictional and piggyback off of our expectations, which then resonates with us on an emotional level. To achieve Resonance the designers rely on the principles of communication theory, which is merely the branch of knowledge dealing with the principles and methods by which information is conveyed. Those three principles are Comfort, Surprise and Completion. And while these are key to top-down design first, which is something that Mark reinforces throughout the podcast we listened to a snippet of, I do think that there is some truth to the fact that bottom-up relies on some of these principles as well, even if it is to a lesser degree. As there must be some form of resonance within the actions we take within a set, and how it effects us through game play.
Comfort is the core pillar for designing within this concept of Resonance, a base if you will that must exists before either surprise or completion can even be considered. Comfort, in the context of design, states that for a top-down set to work it must lean on the familiarity of expectations. In that if there is a gothic horror set, what would be the tropes or concepts that the player base would expect from that idea. What would a cowboy set be without sheriffs taking down outlaws, references to famous western movies, or shootouts with the law. Comfort is the meeting of the players where their expectations lie.
It's presenting an idea at a glance and allowing them to fill in the blanks with their own knowledge. The opposite of comfort would be stating to the player that you intend to do a set focused on an idea then placing cards within it that are irrelevant to that idea, which leaves them questioning the intent. Therefore, understanding and leveraging these anticipated motifs is put front and center in the design of the set and is crucial when designing in top-down, because by its very nature for flavor to work we must understand its references and ideas.
That said it does also work the other way around, even if it is not to the same degree. If we go back to the Odyssy block, comfort is achieved by meeting player expectations of a Graveyard focused Block. So mechanics like Flashback, Madness and Threshold, all meet the player where their expectations lie for this mechanical theme. While bottom-up is less about being referential, like top down is, it still needs to provide the players with what they expect from the product in a mechanical sense.
To further reinforce this comfort, whether in a top-down or bottom up set, the core concept must be felt within the common and uncommon rarities of cards. As when you crack your first pack eighty percent of it is taken up by these rarities. Meaning that you must establish your idea early and often to ensure comfort. From there rare cards then enforce comfort through cornerstone cards which make their way into decks and are what is remembered most out of any given set, but this is supplementary to what is established in the previous two rarities.
Once you have achieved comfort then it's time for the second pillar, surprise, as you don't just want to hand the player a dish with everything they have seen before. The idea is to put that Magic: the Gathering spin on it. But surprise only works when comfort is established, as surprise for its own sake is merely chaos, and thus becomes unsurprising. For instance Theros took the idea of Greek Mythology, but instead of just providing one to one gods, they took some of what was expected and added in fresh elements.
Like taking the analog of Zues the leader of the gods and merging it with the sun god Helios, to create something new in Heliod. We can appreciate the surprise because we understand the base of the reference. These elements are the “Magic: the Gathering” twist. It's bringing what is known into a new world that feels Magic, and not directly copying the thematic source. Because when it comes down to it comfort without surprise is boring, but surprise without comfort is merely randomness. Surprise works a little different when talking about bottom-up though. You see adding in mechanics to simply surprise really has no place in this context, instead I think of it like this. Surprise for bottom-up design means adding in unusual takes on the mechanical themes of the set, which may not work in every deck but have interactions which are fun and interesting.
The final principle is completion. You see it's not just about the individual pieces. You cannot think about the designs of a set in isolation of a single card, even if that's how we initially discussed these principles of design. Sure each card in a vacuum should aim to accomplish its own vision, the truth is that for these design principles to have any footing it has to be a cohesive experience. The designers have to be conscious of how every individual piece fits together. Even if tight top-down design is accomplished in a card like Cleric Class, it would be meaningless, or at least have little impact, in a set like Streets of New Capenna. The true art of these design principles is in how each card weaves together to form a cohesive set, where each card takes the intent and acts upon it, thus you get an understanding of the pattern through the whole. This means that for these design principles to work it has to be conceptualized at a set level, then applied at a per card level in order to accomplish completion.
While these principles are the bedrock of Top-down design and to a lesser degree bottom-up design, top-down can be risky because it has a greater reliance on resonance, as it can lead to a set failing if the theme or concept does not immediately make itself known or felt by a wider audience, a perfect example of this is the original Kamigawa block. Mark Rosewater has spoken on several occasions that the block was a failure, both mechanically and in how it resonated with audiences. Where much of the flavourful failings comes down to what they leaned on. Instead of widely expected tropes they instead dug into Japanese mythology and religion.
While this conceptually sounds very cool, and more faithful to the source, the issue is the lack of resonance, as most players, especially at the time, were not as versed in these concepts, and as such there was no comfort, even if the designers did their best to represent these ideas. This is because comfort only works when the the source is widely understood. Making resonance a complex issue that relies on both being something done faithfully, while also being based on a concepts that players would recognize, and wish to take part in. Because even if they do understand the references, you also have to ask, is this a flavorful concept that players even care to be a part of.
Mark Rosewater talks about this failing in his article “Making of a Dynasty” where he said
“The creative itself was a little too faithful to an aspect of Japanese mythology that the majority of the audience wasn't familiar with, so to a majority of the audience it read less "Japanese" and more "quirky". All in all, while it was a cool plane, we didn't execute on it as well as we could have (and again, I want to stress that this was our first time doing this type of top-down block design).”
As you can see without the foundation of comfort, through widely understood ideas, the next two principles had no footing. I believe that is why when we returned to Kamigawa they instead worked within the space of Japanese pop culture and widely understood Japanese concepts from the stories they share with the rest of the world. That said I wonder if the ideas presented in the original Kamigawa Block were tackled now would they have landed better? Of course the set had its own mechanical issues, but I think its a great example of how important resonance is when it comes to top-down design and the potential pitfalls of such an approach.
Working from either side
A well designed card or set should never betray the methods in which it was designed. What I mean by this is that while top-down or bottom-up patterns dictate the starting point for the designers to work from, a well crafted set should obscure which method was used. As the other side of the card must always work with what was crafted initially.
In the case of top-down design, the mechanics have to be there to put to action the flavor. Sure a card can tell you that it's a gold pan, that it has art and a type to ensure that this flavor is set in stone, but without a mechanic that makes it feel like you are panning for gold then it's merely fluff without substance. The same happens with the inverse. A mechanical concept is all good and well, but if it cannot rationalize its existence within the setting then its nothing more than math.
Take for instance a card which sacrifices an artifact to deal three damage to each creature. With only that you have nothing more than an effect that helps clear the board, but when the top half of the card is applied it becomes something more. It's now an act of sabotage on a Plane whose story revolves around revolt. This could have taken shape from top-down but was implemented bottom up in a set where artifacts where easy to come by. This idea of top-down and bottom-up being indistinguishable is something that Mark Rosewater has said plainly in his Blogatog
“When we do our job right, the mechanics and flavor feel seamless regardless of how it was built.”
This extends beyond just a single card example and into the set itself. As a successful set has to make this integration so seamless that we as consumers of the set shouldn't be able to tell which design principle was used, in that the mechanics and flavor should be perfectly integrated. The proof of this came to me while researching this article, as one of the hardest parts was deciding if a set was top down or bottom up. To not make a mistake through assumptions I had to rely on looking up sets individually to find some random blog or other post from the designers pointing out their intent directly.
The best example of this is the set Strixhaven. When you first observe the set you wouldn't be far off to assume that it's clearly a top-down magic school set, right, something like Harry Potter? Well no, in fact its a bottom-up set with a focus on enemy color pairs as well as the obvious instants and sorceries matter as its mechanical identity, and yet it could have easily been created by the inverse and would have potentially turned out the same or very similar.
We could make the logical conclusion that a magical school would have a heavy focus on instants and sorceresses? It makes logical sense, but when it comes to design it's all about where you start and in this case they started from the bottom and then rationalized this kind of set by wrapping it in the flavor of a magic school. Good set design should have flavor that supports the mechanical concepts derived from bottom-up design while a top-down sets still requires mechanics that can help express, and put into action the flavor.
Once again top-down versus bottom up isn't a conflict in result but rather a conflict in starting point. By entering at a specific place it's clear to designers of their intent, but the other side of the card cannot be ignored. But of course just because both sides must be present it does not mean there aren't shortcomings to either approach, and I do believe that top-down, and a reliance on it, comes with very specific pitfalls.
Modern Top Down
This all leads me to why I even wanted to talk about design in the first place. As I believe we are currently in an era where top-down is being leveraged more than it ever has before. If I think back historically to what top-down sets existed, they were quite rare. Theros, Innistrad, and the original Kamigawa, but now nearly every modern set is top down. Think Thunder Junction, Murders at Karlov Manor, Wilds of Eladraine, Neon dynasty, New Cappenna, Forgotten Realms and of course universes beyond, which are by their very nature Top-down sets. But where did this heavy reliance come from? Well I have a couple theories.
My first theory as to why we see more top-down than bottom up comes down to Magic's move away from Blocks. You see with being on a Plane for only one set the designers have to establish the identity of that world in one go, a challenging task. So if they can instead rely on established ideas then some of that work is outsourced to our comfort in those ideas. You can just say hey this is a cowboy set, then put a Magic coat of paint over it and build out on those expectations, while a bottom up set would have to rationalize its mechanics in a world purely of the designers imagination, which is a lot of work. Not that they are not capable of it, but it does pose its own problems in the context of a block-less world.
Then of course there is the elephant in the room Universes Beyond. As we continue to see more and more of these sets we must settle in with the idea of top-down design, as these sets are there to meet our expectations of other IP's. But the issue is that these sort of sets abandon one of the principles of communication theory, in that they rely heavily on comfort and completion but abandon surprise. As there is can be no surprise when what the set must accomplish is accommodating expectations, and nothing more.
These two factors, both the saturation of universes beyond and of the single set rather than the block, has put us into a place where Magic is not defined by its mechanical identity but rather what it can mirror within its own worlds. I neither like nor dislike this idea, I mean Magic does it well, but perhaps there is something to be said about Magic moving away from a mechanics first perspective to a flavour first one.
My other theory is that Magic has done it all. What I mean is that how can it really sell you a graveyard set, a land matters set, or any other of mechanics first sets if it has all been done before. By starting with flavor and selling you on that, they can then work to rationalize that flavor with mechanics that suit it rather than the inverse. It's as if they are in a corner of sorts, do they continue to rehash mechanical focuses or do they come up with a wider concept then ask what mechanics work within that idea, and I believe the latter does make sense for a game as old as Magic. You see in the beginning everything was fresh and players were hungry for mechanical sets that gave them new tools, but now that all those tools have been built, how can they get us excited about them all over again.
When both these theories I have spoken of come together then its really is no wonder why we find ourselves in the top-down era we are in now. For good or bad this is modern Magic and I don't see it changing anytime soon. The issue I have is by relying on flavor first, not flavor of original designed, but rather on established ideas and themes, Magic threatens to water itself down by merely being a reflection of pop culture rather than defining their own culture through strong mechanics and new ideas. Magic brought me in because of its original ideas, and its strong gameplay, but when what it becomes is just a mirror rather than a new idea, then perhaps a focus on top-down can pull us away from what made us fall in love with the game in the first place.
Thanks for reading and I can't wait to get into the comments to hear your thoughts on this topic. Let me know what you think, which design principle do you believe is better, if either can even be better? If you want more dicetry content then be sure to read another article or check me out in one of the links below, and with that friends, I will catch you in the multiverse, bye!
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