State of Product Design 2018
Gavin Verhey
2018 was packed to the brim with diverse Magic products. Here, Gavin overviews those that stood out most, for better or for worse.
* Masters 25 was something they were pretty excited for, but the response was pretty negative due to the lack of money cards. The set still sold fine.
* Ultimate Masters, originally named Immortal Masters, did very well.
* No last minute surprise, there really aren't any other Masters sets coming up. The reprints will be spread out through other products.
* The late reveal of Ultimate Masters strained both stores and some fans, so they won't do late reveals like this anymore.
* The Core 2019 Welcome Decks and Planeswalker Decks were big hits.
* There has been some question of if these decks really need to be Standard legal, but there will be no changes there for now.
* Spellslinger Starter Kit was an out of the box introductory two-player product sold in mass-market stores (Wal-Mart, Target, etc.). In order to make sure experienced players would feel fine recommending it, they included a few money cards like Ghalta. It did fine, and they'll need another one to really assess it.
* Magic Game Night was an out of the box five-player "board game" product. Design was more constrained than they would have liked. It sold alright, and they feel like they could make it better with a second chance.
* Challenger Decks are doing great. Currently they have to finalize the decks five months ahead of time.
* Battlebond did great. It's clear that both multiplayer-focus and good reprints lead to successful sets. There won't be another Two-Headed Giant set for a while, but we can expect more of those two.
* Commander 2018 had issues, such as so few lands matter cards, but it's still selling very well.
* The price raise came after the decks were finalized (so yes, the line about more money for more power was bunk).
* They are going to improve the quality of reprints with the 2019 decks.
* Guild Kits were a hit. Preconstructed decks continue to do well, even ones aimed at pure casual play (and not Commander) like these.
* The response to Archenemy: Nicol Bolas is that people just wanted decks.
* They'll be experimenting more with preconstructed decks in the future.
* Duel Decks just haven't been selling well, which is why they stopped with Elves vs. Inventors. Plus, they were running out of good themes, and stores thought too many products were coming out, so they had to make a cut somewhere. Unfortunately, that means we're missing out on Sarkhan vs. Sarkhan.
* The ComicCon promos have gotten pretty stale, but they hope to change them up.
* Theme Boosters are a big success, and will be part of all Standard sets going forward. Dominaria had one for each color, and Ravnica 3 has had one for each guild, containing only cards of that theme.
* Mythic Edition has been successful, but they've decided this isn't the exact model they want to use for a high-end direct market product.
* Signature Spellbook: Jace accomplished their goals, so we can expect more Signature Spellbooks in coming years.
* Commander Anthology sold well, which goes to show people are hungry for more Commander products. These won't come out often, but it's another tool in their toolkit.
* Global Series: Jiang Yanggu & Mu Yanling was a flop, due to the restraints of it being Standard legal but only in China, making it super weak. No more Global Series are planned, but Gavin does hope they can bring the global collaboration that went into these decks to other avenues.
* It's too early to tell how Heroes of Dominaria, the board game, is doing.
EDIT:
Ravnica Allegiance survey.