As January 9th came and went, so too did the possibility of getting any more Masters' Edition at the online store. After furious debate online whether or not the set was in the store long enough, or whether or not Force of Will would be more expensive than a first date with the Princess of Monaco, there were still a lot of questions left unanswered; they were guessed at, hinted at, or very vague.

So, I thought it would be good to see what kind of answers we could get. And when you want answers, usually the best place to go is straight to the source. So we did - right to the designers of Master's Edition themselves.

The clan () put together a list of questions we'd thought everyone would like to know about the design of the first Master's Edition. The answers were taken by R&D member Erik Lauer (), and aided by Brand Manager Worth Wollpert (). We left the interview unedited (with the exception of an unanswered question removed), but read on for thoughts and insights afterward.

Interview

: Who was it who first came up with the Idea for Master’s Edition, and when?

: I believe it was Aaron Forsythe, but I am not sure. *WW* I think Erik is right here, Bill Rose and Aaron Forsythe had been talking about something like this online for a while now, I know they had approached the subject with Justin before I started.

: MaRo generally lets us know who was in charge of R&D for the newly developed sets. Who were the people in R&D in change of coming up with the Master's Edition list?

: Aaron Forsythe, Devin Low, Mark Rosewater, Matt Place, Mike Turian, and Alexis Janson came up with the Master's Edition I list.
: I should add that Erik is my main guy (or rather R&D's main guy) for making the subsequent editions.

: Obviously, Master’s Edition had only Pre-Mirage cards in it, but what was the exact selection criterion for the fist Master’s Edition?

: None of the cards were available in previous sets, except as promotional cards. Also cards which were on the Legacy banned list were not printed.

: Will these criteria extend into Master’s Edition II, or subsequent Master’s Editions?

: No. When Master's Edition was designed, it was assumed that draft would be a mix of Tenth Edition and Master's Edition. Clearly that is not what many players prefer. Preprints (printing something something players already have "before" the set they have it in) is now part of Master's Edition II. Also now that Classic has restricted cards, Master's Edition II may have cards deemed too strong for Legacy.

: Right around the time Master's Edition Was released, Classic was given a restricted list, making it the online equivalent to paper's Vintage. Is one of the goals of the Master's Edition series to get Classic to the point where you can play Vintage online (or close enough to it), or does R&D see Classic continuing forever as its own distinct format?

: Currently the intention is to keep Classic as its own distinct format, somewhere between Vintage and Legacy.

: Were you afraid that Master’s Edition would cause a backlash from players who played only paper, perhaps because they felt they should have the opportunity to get those cards?

: That is something we keep an eye on.

: Force of Will is an obvious staple for any format. Was there a conscious decision to keep MED from having other staples of that caliber, such as Dual Lands? And if so, why?

: We hope that the V3 server structure will hold more players. Releasing the Dual Lands before V3 would be a barrier to entry to this format.

: No cards that are restricted in Vintage were included in Master's Edition, although several cards on that list and the Legacy banned list are already allowed in Classic. Again, was this a conscious decision to avoid putting these cards in Master's Edition?

: Yes.

: With the inevitability of ultra-powerful cards like Oath of Druids, Tinker, Tolarian Academy, Yawgmoth's Bargain and Yawgmoth's Will appearing online, do you think the Classic format will be ready to have future Master's Editions with cards with similar powerful levels and, even if that means some of them might be restricted on release?

: Yes.

: When you were deciding on cards for Master's Edition, did you also have Classic formats like Prismatic, Singleton and others in mind? If so, which cards do you think fit that bill?

: We consider many formats when releasing sets. For instance, Varchild's War-Riders are very different in a multi-player game.

: Master’s Edition was released with the expectation it would be drafted along with 10th Edition. Was this the concept from the beginning, or was this something that was decided after the contents of the set were finalized?

: This was the concept from the beginning.

: Master's Edition did not have any cards from Portal or Starter sets - did you consider those cards for Master's Edition? What about Master's Edition II?

: They were not considered for Master's Edition, but are in Master's Edition II.

: Where there any decisions you regret making, and what would you do if you could go back and fix them?

: Given what we knew then, I think Master's Edition was very well done.

: Personally, what card were you most happy to see in Master's Edition and why?

: Force of Will. One of my favorite standard decks of all time was a Big Blue deck, which would not have worked without Force of Will. I think this card, more than any other in Master's Edition, makes Classic different from Online Extended.

: Thanks for taking time out of your busy day, Erik and Worth

Analysis

Firstly, I found a couple of things surprising. One thing that definitely surprised me was the number of people who were involved from R&D. My guess would have been it was a much smaller group - after all, it's only online and it's not like we are talking about a Standard set - nor is their actually any development going on! Another thing that caught my eye was that MED had been concepted since Justin (Ziran), former brand manager of Magic The Gathering Online, was still at WoTC. When we asked the question, I didn't expect it to have been so far back, though recent forum talk with Worth has shown that they are already working on the second Master's Edition for release in Aug/Sep 2008, so perhaps it's not as big a surprise now.

And while surprises are nice, I like knowing, with certainty, exactly what R&D has planned for MED and the Classic format. The largest nugget of info in this area was that the dual lands (Underground Sea, Tropical Island, etc...) were not considered for inclusion with MED because they knew it would be off sale before v3 was released (or at least before v3 had a chance to really grow). In retrospect, this is a wise move. I know the community barked loudly about not having dual lands (I did some of the barking), but I think you can see the incredible foresight they had to NOT put the duals in the first set. Like Force of Will, duals are staples that you would need four of to compete in Classic. Imagine having 11 such staples that the v3 crowd would have only secondary market access to? It would be a disaster for the Classic community, since the sheer amount of existing playsets, never mind the price, would be a highly limiting barrier to entry. Add on to that the fact that extended also rotates at much the same time, and that decision my have made the Classic format, where as the opposite decision may have broken it.

Another interesting tidbit was they purposely excluded any banned cards in Legacy. It's important to note the timing here - when MED was constructed, Classic had no bannings or restrictions. In fact, it wasn't even known if it would have banning or restrictions. It wasn't until the release of MED that they finally settled down on the first restrictions for the the format, forever casting the direction of format to following the philosophy of Vintage - play everything, restrict what's needed. In retrospect, the decision to not include such powerful cards might prove to be an improper one. Force of Will suffers badly from being the only rare in the set that is a staple for Classic. If they had known, at the time, that Classic would have restrictions, they probably could have safely added a hand full of cards they *knew* would be restricted on printing - something they have now said that they will do in MED II - which might have lessoned the impact of the Force of Will syndrome. If Master's Edition had contained Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor and, I dunno, Black Vise, it might have helped keep the price of Force of Will down with an increase of other Classic staples.

I know I just wrote about how having 11 Classic staples in the set would have ruined Classic forever, but restricted cards are different. You only need one - not four - of each. I know WoTC was playing the safe bet by following this rule, but I still feel it was an opportunity missed to spread out the number of restricted cards they'd like to eventually print in Master's Editions. I'm sure you'll agree that a whole bunch of restricted cards in any one set makes for a very poor set to purchase. In addition, avoiding Legacy banned cards when the format already played with several Legacy banned cards at the time (Entomb, Goblin Recruiter, Mind's Desire, Skullclamp, Vampiric Tutor, Worldgorger Dragon) also seems to fly in the face of reason. Why avoid Legacy banned cards when you're not banning them anyway? I suppose you could argue they wanted to avoid banning more Legacy banned cards, but that shows a certain lack of foresight. The future of Classic is littered with cards that are banned in Legacy.

Speaking of banned/restricted cards, this quote "Also now that Classic has restricted cards, Master's Edition II may have cards deemed too strong for Legacy" I see as a not very subtle way of telling us it will have such cards, but not confirming it, since that would be narrowing the list down to a small number of cards. Also keep in mind that "too strong for Legacy" may also include things like Mana Drain or Mishra's Workshop, which aren't restricted in Vintage. Couple that with the next answer, where Erik and R&D perceive the ultimate power level of Classic to end up "somewhere between Legacy and Vintage" and I think you have your definitive answer to the burning question of what R&D sees Classic becoming in terms of a format and it's power level. Personally, what those statements also lock down for me is a couple of things. First, that the Power 9 will not see an online release. If you plan on releasing those, you are making Vintage - not something between Vintage and Legacy.

It also puts you in a particular state of mind when it comes to looking at what to restrict in Classic. For example, I think Vampiric Tutor is a safe bet to remain on the list forever, but perhaps Flash is not. Flash isn't restricted in Vintage. It is banned in Legacy. Not that I'm hoping for it's removal from the list at this point, but later on down the road it might not remain far and above the power level of the format. Certainly gauging on what is banned/restricted in the paper eternal formats is a nice baseline, but I wouldn't trust to just that - they are always so many considerations to make when looking at the restricted list for Classic. For example, presently, with the absence of all the best mana accelerators of all time (and the certainty that the top 6 will NEVER see play), probably Lotus Petal isn't worth restricting when it's released. Chrome Mox definitely isn't. Heck, maybe (and I mean MAYBE) Sol Ring itself, were it to be in MED 2, isn't worth restricting. It's hard to tell since there has never been a format that has had Sol Ring but not Moxes and Lotus. It's definitely food for thought.

Lastly, the idea of "preprints" has been confirmed for MED II as well. It's important to keep in mind the context of where that was confirmed - along with the idea that MED II will not be drafted along with another set. The community asked that the MED drafting experience be a little more rounded - unfortunately there are no utility cards left in Pre-Mirage era that haven't already seen print. I mean, if you want a counterspell in MED II, your pickings are slim at Pre-Mirage common - you might as well just reprint Counterspell - with it's original Alpha artwork. I would expect to see those kind of utility cards. I would NOT expect to see really great cards from Mirage block forward. There is little point to stealing the thunder from Urza's Legacy by slipping Goblin Welder into MED II, as an example, just to have it 3-4 years before it will see print. But there is a lot of use of slapping a Disenchant into the common slot to deal with pesky enchantments that have no answers once they hit play, like MED (I'm looking at you, Oubliette and Moat). You can also bet that Portal cards will be used to achieve some of this too, since they have been likewise confirmed.

I hope you found the interview as enlightening as we did. I'd like to thank Erik and Worth for taking the time to answer our questions, and especially for not coyly avoiding those questions which we carefully disguised as quesions about the first MED, which were really ones we wanted to get some insight on MED II :)