A Timmy, Johnny, and Spike Walk into an Expansion...
A deep dive into how the player psychographics influence and guide card design in Magic: The Gathering
Among the seemingly endless metrics and scales upon which Magic cards are designed, none feel as personal as the “Timmy, Johnny, and Spike” player Psychographics outlined by Mark Rosewater in his 2013 article of the same name. While this Article is only around 9 years old, the DNA for these profiles can be traced back as far as the game has existed, even to before Mark Rosewater took the lead Designer role at Wizards of the Coast. Over the years, the terms have gone from development jargon used to put a name to different kinds of players the designers were making cards for, to a kind of banner that players ascribe to themselves. This makes players more sensitive than ever to what cards are for them in any given set, and especially comes to the forefront with the rise of Commander as a form of play. Luckily, Wizards of the Coast has made a great effort, now more than ever before, to put these psychographics at the forefront of design. In order to understand how Wizards of the Coast creates its cards for the various psychographics, it is worth it to first explain what each profile is all about.
The first player archetype to cover is the Timmy/Tammy (which will henceforth be referred to as Timmy for brevity’s sake). Timmy is the “Power Gamer,” and was the first to be given a name. Timmy loves giant monsters, splashy effects, and novel things that work on their own. They play magic because it's fun, and want to see cool things happen. A common misconception is that Timmy likes only big creatures, or that Timmy has to be someone young or new to the game. This is not always the case, as Timmy can be pleased with cheaper cards as well, as long as they do something cool. For example, Timmy is perhaps the most likely to enjoy mechanics like Level Up and evocative Tribal Synergies. Timmy is also a social person, and sitting around with their friends and chucking fireballs at each other's faces is exactly their idea of a good time playing magic. For this reason, Timmy might be less comfortable in the tournament environment and does not have a fondness for tight games with thin margins. If Timmy plays ten games and only wins three of them, but absolutely crushes their opponent in those games, it was time well spent, and Timmy is satisfied. However, there might be a player even less concerned with winning, and that would be Johnny.
Johnny/Jenny is the combo player. To them, Magic is a form of self expression, and a way to prove their own creativity and invention to others. There is nothing a Johnny loves more than winning with a card that other people think is bad. To them, a seemingly bad or restrictive card is just the opportunity to build a new deck. Where Timmy is satisfied with winning a few games out of ten so long as those wins are sufficiently epic, Johnny can play twenty games, but if they manage to pull off their idea once, they will walk away satisfied. That is how much self expression matters to Johnny. Johnny cards are characterized by being weak on their own, but also by having great potential. Cards with lots of moving parts, triggers, and activations that can slot together to form a strong value engine or even an infinite loop are a trademark of the Johnny playstyle. About every card with an alternate win condition is a Johnny card, as well cards which open the door for fantastic synergies and combos. In every Johnny’s deck is a puzzle, and once the pieces are all there, the pilot feels on top of the world, as they want to win the game, but in their own way, fully peacocking their creativity.
Spikes are the tournament grinders, the self improvers, the “tryhards” of Magic. Spike wants to win, and by any means necessary without cheating. Spike will play ten games and win nine, but if they feel that they should have won the tenth game, they will walk away unhappy. Spike relishes the competitive aspect of Magic, and the thrill of outplaying an opponent. Spike loves dominance, victory, and learning. This may sound like a negative thing, and it is very easy to paint Spike in a negative light, but this betrays the layers that make Spike’s perspective so valuable. Firstly, the entire Magic competitive scene consists of Spikes. These are the players that travel long distances and pay money to compete in tournaments, dreaming of being named World Champion. Spikes are also the players that are most discerning of new cards. While Johnny is looking for new combo pieces and Timmy is checking out the next splashy spell for their commander deck. Spike is poring over the spoilers for the next thing in Standard or Modern, and testing it as soon as the set comes out. Finally, Spike develops the game’s skill ceiling with every game they play. Spike is the most concerned with self improvement, and that is something to be respected. Spike is also very easy to please for Wizards of the Coast designers. Strong and efficient cards will make Spike happy, and Wizards does their best to print some every set. Other than that, however, Spike does have some unique preferences. Spike loves decision making, as cards that lead to decision making present opportunities for them to outplay their opponent. Spike also likes trading resources around. Spike is perceptive, but easy to please, and that is what makes them an important piece of Magic’s ecosystem.
In order to understand how these psychographics can influence and lead to great card design, we must also understand some of Magic’s design philosophies. There is a lot of wisdom that Head Designer Mark Rosewater has shared between his podcast and Blogatog, but one great font of knowledge is his panel from GDC 2016 titled “20 Years, 20 Lessons Learned.” In Lesson 11, we can get a glimpse of one of the core ideas behind successful card design, where he explains that R&D had an internal poll system called the Rare Poll (we will discuss rarity later in depth), where employees at Wizards of the Coast from outside R&D could post their opinions on potential rare designs on a scale of 1-10. What Rosewater highlights is that cards that received polarized ratings were much more favored than ones that received middling ratings across the board. He goes on to summarize that R&D likes cards which evoke a strong response, even if that response might be negative for some people. This is a concept that ties in very neatly with the psychographics. A big scary dinosaur would receive no good ratings from Johnny. To them, it’s a dumb creature, but to Timmy, it seems like the sweetest card ever, and they already want a full playset. This has become more and more prevalent as time has gone on, and it is thanks to how firm the rarity system has become in Magic.
Cards in Magic have four rarities: Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Mythic Rare. Initially there were only three, and they were not printed on the cards themselves. This was meant to add a sense of intrigue and mystery to the game and its collectibles. This was a time before the internet was huge and the Trading Card Game genre had been fully realized. However, now, everyone can know everything about Magic sets before they even come out, and people can look up and buy cards online in seconds, so a lot of the old purposes behind rarity have faded with time. However, these rarities have stuck around, along with the addition of Mythic Rare, but now that cards tell you what rarity they are in the set symbol, their purpose has changed somewhat. Rarity now works to reconcile new and interesting card design with the game’s limited environment. Limited is the name for draft and sealed, where players open a set number of booster packs and play with whatever cards they receive.
In many cases, a card’s rarity is heavily influenced by its performance in the set’s limited environment. Common cards make up the backbone of most draft and sealed decks, and therefore have simpler abilities or more general usage than higher rarity cards. Uncommon cards are usually more efficient or narrow than common cards, but are not as splashy as rare cards. These are usually the better cards in a draft deck, but also might be narrow tech against certain strategies. The idea is that these cards are easily understandable, but a little too good or narrow to be seen often in draft. Rare and Mythic Rare are the slots where the most powerful but also most unusual effects can live. These are not meant to show up in limited very often at all, so the Rare and Mythic Rare cards are where the most experimental and unusual designs go, and these are where R&D most explore ideas that please Timmy, Johnny, and Spike.
As the years have gone on, the Rarer slots have become a sort of playground for Timmy, Johnny, and Spike, as card designs get more and more specialized. It is often found when looking through older sets and their card catalogs that there are a decent amount of rares that seem to be for nobody. Cards like Vizzerdrix, Molten Sentry, and Vassal’s Duty don’t aim to please anyone, and there are many similar cards like them throughout Magic’s History. This has changed drastically, and now, every single rare is quite clearly meant to either please one of the three player profiles, or has an effect far too specific to show up in draft. There is a visceral excitement to rare cards that has come about from this newer design philosophy. Looking at the mythic rares of the most recent set “Phyrexia, All Will Be One,” One can count 6 Johnny Cards, 9 Timmy cards, and 5 Spike Cards. Some of these cards please more than one profile, but none of them miss all three, and this is a sign of successful card design.
The other means by which Wizards of the Coast has started to put more effort towards pleasing all three profiles is through the rise of Commander. Before the 2010s, Wizards of the Coast were most concerned with pleasing and moderating Spike, which is to say, the highest level of play. They had much less reason to be concerned with how a set appealed to Timmy or Johnny, since tournament Magic revolved around the best cards which Spike naturally gravitated towards. However, this changed with the rise of Commander. Commander is characterized by its massive legality, allowing nearly every card ever printed (with a scarce banlist). The format also has some key deckbuilding restrictions, having a Commander that decides the deck’s possible colors, and a rule that no card can appear more than once. The format is also characteristically multiplayer, with the ideal number of players being four in a free-for-all. These rules, possibly unintentionally, created one of the most universally appealing formats in Magic. Timmy’s love building decks with wacky themes supported by a specific commander, like Unicorn tribal, or Chaos decks, Coin Flipping, or anything else they desire. Johnny’s have access to every card in Magic’s history, allowing for a massive volume of combos. Even just having a Commander face up at the start of the game is a brilliant form of self-expression, as Johnny’s can proudly display their niche deckbuilding right there from the Command Zone. Finally, the sub-format of Competitive Elder Dragon Highlander or CEDH can please every Spike who plays, allowing them to use all of the most powerful cards in Magic while also being an ever-evolving format allowing for constant innovation and experimentation. With all these players finding a home in Commander, it has become a format famous for its diversity, as most people play it less to win every game and more to enact their version of fun manifested through the deck they play. This means almost every rare and mythic rare that comes out now has a home in Commander. Wizards of the Coast has taken notice, and now designs cards specifically for the format both in Commander-Specific products like Commander Legends or Preconstructed decks, but also in standard expansion sets there are cards that seem specifically made for Commander, which has actually drawn some ire from players in recent years.