20 Game Design Lessons From Magic: The Gathering That Apply To All Games

In the world of game design, few people have the opportunity to work on a single game for two decades. Mark Rosewater, the head designer for Magic: The Gathering, is one such rarity. At the Game Developers Conference, Rosewater shared invaluable insights from his 20-year journey designing one of the world's most successful collectible card games. His talk, "Magic: the Gathering: 20 Years, 20 Lessons Learned," distilled decades of experience into practical wisdom that applies across the entire spectrum of game design.

Key Points

• Fighting against human nature is a losing battle - change your game to match your players
• Aesthetics matter and affect how players experience your game
• Resonance with familiar concepts helps players connect emotionally and learn mechanics
• Make the fun part also the correct strategy to win
• If everyone likes your game but no one loves it, it will fail
• The details are where players fall in love with your game
• Restrictions breed creativity rather than limiting it

Fighting Human Nature Is a Losing Battle

Rosewater began with a fundamental principle: don't try to force players to behave contrary to their instincts. He illustrated this with a story about the "suspend" mechanic from Time Spiral (2006), which allowed players to cast spells at a reduced cost but with a time delay.

"When you try to make humans change for your game, your game's going to suffer," Rosewater explained. The design team initially created rules preventing players from attacking with creatures the turn they appeared from suspension, but players kept trying to do it anyway. After numerous failed attempts to communicate this restriction, they ultimately changed the rules to allow attacking.

"Don't change your players to match your game," he advised. "Change your game to match your players."

Aesthetics Matter

Moving beyond behavior, Rosewater emphasized how human perception affects game experience. He shared the story of Griselbrand, a demon card that generated unprecedented complaints—not because of power level or flavor issues, but because its numerical values felt wrong to players.

"He was a seven power creature with seven toughness, you could pay seven life to draw seven cards, and he cost eight mana," Rosewater explained. That single misaligned eight in a pattern of sevens created a disconnect that players couldn't ignore.

This lesson highlights how humans are wired to perceive certain patterns and symmetries as pleasing. When game elements violate these expectations without purpose, it creates discomfort that distracts from gameplay.

"If you fight human perception, it just draws attention away from your game," Rosewater noted. "Don't disconnect from aesthetics unless you mean to."

Resonance Is Important

Players don't come to games as blank slates. They bring rich emotional connections from their life experiences that designers can leverage. Rosewater described how during the design of Innistrad, their Gothic horror set, the team began by listing evocative names on a whiteboard and designing cards to match those concepts.

"Your audience has a deep deposit of emotional equity in pre-existing things," he explained. "As game designers, that's a tool you should make use of and build upon."

Rosewater likened this to humans being "pre-loaded" with associations. Magic didn't invent zombies, vampires, or werewolves—it built upon players' existing relationships with these concepts from movies, books, and other media.

Make Use of Piggybacking

Resonance doesn't just create emotional connections; it also serves as a powerful teaching tool. Rosewater called this "piggybacking"—using pre-existing knowledge to front-load game information and make learning easier.

He cited "flying" as Magic's easiest mechanic to teach because it matches real-world expectations. Players intuitively understand that flying creatures can soar over ground-based defenders.

Rosewater also highlighted George Fan's Plants vs. Zombies as a masterclass in piggybacking. Fan chose plants as defensive units because they're naturally immobile—"planted" in place—eliminating questions about why units can't move. Similarly, zombies made perfect attackers because people expect them to advance relentlessly in waves.

"Remember, you don't have to teach players things they already know," Rosewater said.

Don't Confuse Interesting with Fun

Game designers must distinguish between intellectual stimulation (interesting) and emotional stimulation (fun). Rosewater illustrated this with Odyssey's attempt to invert card advantage—a fundamental Magic strategy where having more cards than your opponent gives you an edge.

The set included cards that rewarded players for discarding cards, directly contradicting established strategy. While intellectually novel, players rejected it because it wasn't emotionally satisfying.

"We tend to think of ourselves as intellectual creatures, but we tend to make most of our decisions based less on facts and more on emotion," Rosewater observed. "When you speak to players on an emotional level, you're more likely to create player satisfaction."

Understand What Emotion Your Game Is Trying to Evoke

Every successful game should target specific emotional responses. For Innistrad, Rosewater recognized that as a horror-inspired set, it needed to evoke fear, suspense, and dread. This guided mechanic design, leading to transforming cards (humans becoming werewolves), "morbid" abilities triggered by death, and "flashback" spells that could be cast from the graveyard.

"To be successful with your game, you need to know what your audience is trying to experience," he explained. "In order to know what to put into your game, you have to understand what comes out."

Rosewater shared a screenwriting principle that applies perfectly to game design: "No scene is worth a movie, no line is worth a scene." Similarly, no matter how clever a game element might be, if it doesn't contribute to the desired emotional experience, it should be cut.

Allow Players to Make the Game Personal

Players form stronger connections to games they can customize. Rosewater explained how even basic lands—Magic's most fundamental resource cards—became collectibles when given distinctive art treatments. Players didn't just want any island card; they wanted specific islands that reflected their personal taste.

This connects to a psychological principle: people associate familiarity with quality. "The more players feel the game is about them, the better their brain will think of it," Rosewater noted.

He emphasized providing abundant choices—colors, creatures, characters, factions, illustrations, frames—so players can find elements that resonate personally with them.

The Details Are Where Players Fall in Love

Small details often create the strongest player connections. Rosewater shared the story of Fblthp, a minor character appearing in the background of a single card illustration. This seemingly insignificant homunculus captured players' imagination, inspiring fan art, memes, and merchandise.

"As the player explores their choices, they are searching for things to bond with," Rosewater explained. "The players want to find a piece of the game to call their own."

These details might seem insignificant to designers, but they can mean everything to individual players. "What might seem insignificant is anything but," he emphasized. "That small detail may only matter to a tiny percentage, but to that percentage, it can mean everything."

Allow Players to Have a Sense of Ownership

Beyond personal connection, players need to feel ownership over aspects of the game. Rosewater discussed how the player-created Commander format became Magic's most popular variant. What began as a casual format developed by judges eventually became an official product line due to its popularity.

Customization is key to ownership. Magic players don't just build decks; they create "their deck"—a personal expression drawn from thousands of possible cards. "When their deck wins, they win, because the deck is no longer just part of the game, it's an extension of themselves," Rosewater said.

Leave Room for Players to Explore

Discovery creates investment. Rosewater explained how unintended card combinations, like Summoner's Pact and Hive Mind creating an instant-win condition, became some of the most exciting aspects of Magic. These emergent interactions weren't planned but arose from players exploring the game space.

Drawing on his background as a Hollywood TV writer, Rosewater shared a pitch technique: "Don't talk at your audience; talk with them." The key was getting the audience to ask questions, making them more invested in the answers.

"Don't always show the players the things you want them to see," he advised. "Let your players find them. Give them the choices, design, and customization, but let it be things they discover."

If Everyone Likes Your Game But No One Loves It, It Will Fail

One of Rosewater's most crucial insights challenges conventional wisdom about player feedback. When evaluating new cards, the Magic team uses a rating system from 1-10. Counterintuitively, a card receiving all 7/10 ratings is considered weaker than one with half 1-2 ratings and half 9-10 ratings.

"We prefer cards that evoke a strong response, even if some of that response is negative," Rosewater explained, comparing game design to dating: "If everything is checked off on your list but there is no joy, no excitement, no passion, it doesn't matter—there won't be a second date."

Players don't need to love everything, but they need to love something. "Things that evoke strong responses will most often evoke strong responses in many directions," he noted. "It's almost impossible to make players love something without making other players hate it."

Don't Design to Prove You Can Do Something

Rosewater cautioned against letting ego drive design decisions. He shared the story of Tibalt, a planeswalker card made to cost two mana simply because they'd never created one that cheap before. The result was a weak, unpopular card that failed to serve either the character or the players.

"People who create tend to have large egos because it takes ego to will something into existence," Rosewater acknowledged. "But you can't let your ego drive your motivation."

He emphasized that every design decision should serve the optimal player experience, not the designer's self-satisfaction or desire for challenge.

Make the Fun Part Also the Correct Strategy to Win

Players will pursue victory even when it's not enjoyable. Rosewater illustrated this with "gotcha" cards from Unhinged, which punished players for talking, laughing, or making normal gestures during gameplay. The optimal strategy became doing nothing—precisely the opposite of having fun.

"It's not the player's job to find the fun," Rosewater insisted. "It is your job as a game designer to put the fun where they can't help but find it."

When players sit down to a game, there's an implied promise: if they do what the game tells them to do, they'll have an enjoyable experience. If they follow the rules but don't have fun, they rightfully blame the game.

"Fun cannot be tangential," Rosewater stressed. "It has to be the core component of your game experience."

Don't Be Afraid to Be Blunt

Sometimes subtlety fails. When players weren't attacking with powerful Eldrazi creatures in Rise of the Eldrazi, despite the clear advantages, the solution was straightforward: force them to attack. This mandatory action taught players the strategy was beneficial.

"Artists tend to prefer subtlety—they're taught 'show, don't tell'—but sometimes subtlety doesn't work," Rosewater explained. He compared creative tools to a toolbox: "Sometimes you just need a hammer."

Design Components for Their Intended Audience

Different players want different things from games. Rosewater outlined his player psychographics—Timmy/Tammy (experience-seekers), Johnny/Jenny (expression-seekers), and Spike (achievement-seekers)—to explain how cards appeal to different player motivations.

He shared the example of Molten Sentry, a coin-flip card that tried to appeal to both Timmy and Spike but satisfied neither. "When you aim to please everyone, you often please no one," he concluded.

Instead, each component should be designed with a specific audience segment in mind. "If other players don't like it, it doesn't matter—it's not for them," Rosewater said. "Make sure each component is for the person it's made for."

Be More Afraid of Boring Your Players Than Challenging Them

Innovation involves risk, but stagnation guarantees failure. Rosewater recounted the resistance to split cards—cards with two different spells divided diagonally—which many feared would break Magic's visual identity. Despite opposition, they proved immensely popular.

"In my 20 years at Wizards, I've done a lot of groundbreaking things, and every time, someone usually multiple people came out of the woodwork full of passion and purpose and said to me, 'You can't do that, it's too risky, it will hurt the game,'" Rosewater recalled. "But interestingly, I've also created my share of boring mechanics, yet very few people ever had passion and purpose to stop me from making those."

Players forgive ambitious failures because they respect the attempt. They don't forgive boredom. "The greatest risk is not taking risks," Rosewater asserted.

You Don't Have to Change Much to Change Everything

Sometimes a single alteration transforms the entire experience. Rosewater explained how Ravnica's multicolor theme differed from Invasion's simply by changing the focus from playing as many colors as possible to playing as few as possible (specifically two). This small shift, combined with creating ten distinctive guilds, produced Magic's most popular setting.

Rosewater compared game designers to bad cooks who keep adding ingredients, never sure if there's enough. "Instead of asking how much do I need to add, I now ask how little do I need to add," he shared.

Minimal changes often yield maximal results while reducing complexity, clarifying the game's message, and preserving resources for future use.

Restrictions Breed Creativity

Contrary to popular belief, unlimited options don't enhance creativity—they hinder it. Rosewater explained that the brain seeks efficiency, solving new problems using established neural pathways. This produces familiar solutions rather than innovative ones.

"If you want to get your brain to get to new places, start from somewhere you've never started before," he advised. By imposing different restrictions on each Magic set, Rosewater forces himself to think differently and discover new solutions.

He illustrated this with his writing experience: his favorite article combined two seemingly unrelated topics—design mistakes and dating—which he would never have explored without that specific constraint.

Your Audience Is Good at Recognizing Problems and Bad at Solving Them

As Magic's spokesperson, Rosewater interacts extensively with fans, having answered over 60,000 questions in four years on his Tumblr blog alone. This experience taught him to value player feedback selectively.

"Your players have a better understanding of how they feel about your game," he explained, comparing game design to medicine. "A doctor always asks how you're feeling because you know better than the doctor how you're feeling, but the doctor doesn't often ask you how to solve the problem."

Players excel at identifying issues but lack the designer's perspective, tools, and understanding of constraints. "Please use your audience as a resource to discover what's wrong," Rosewater advised, "but take it with a grain of salt when they offer solutions."

All the Lessons Connect

In his conclusion, Rosewater revealed that his 20 lessons aren't isolated principles but parts of an interconnected whole. Each supports and enhances the others: understanding human nature makes ownership easier; pushing for compelling experiences helps players explore details; embracing restrictions leads to innovations players love.

"I didn't really give you 20 lessons today," Rosewater admitted. "I gave you one really large interconnected [lesson], but I broke them apart for easy digesting."

This holistic approach to game design—recognizing how psychological principles, creative processes, and player experiences intertwine—represents the culmination of Rosewater's two decades crafting Magic: The Gathering.

Final Thoughts

Mark Rosewater's lessons extend far beyond card game design. They speak to fundamental truths about human psychology, creativity, and the relationship between creators and audiences. Whether you're designing video games, board games, or interactive experiences of any kind, these principles offer valuable guidance for creating meaningful player connections.

By focusing on emotional responses, embracing constraints, celebrating details, and understanding player motivations, designers can create games that don't merely entertain but resonate deeply with their audiences. As Rosewater demonstrates, the most successful games aren't just played—they're loved, personalized, and explored for years or even decades.

For the full conversation, watch the video here.