The Woman Driving Magic Card Design for Commander – Melissa DeTora

Melissa DeTora is a Senior Game Designer at Wizards of the Coast. She is a former professional Magic player and the first woman to Top 8 a Magic Pro Tour.

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Timestamps

0:00:00 Intro
0:01:50 What’s new with Melissa
0:03:08 Designing Magic sets that haven’t come out yet
0:04:53 Magic Con recap, takeaways, future plans
0:09:06 Melissa’s hidden Magic celebrity
0:12:34 Refining the Magic Con experience
0:14:04 The Gavin Verhey “unknown event”
0:18:12 Gracefully playing EDH at Magic Cons
0:21:02 Collecting community feedback at Magic Cons
0:27:35 Most Magic players don’t know what planeswalkers are
0:29:59 How to recommend stuff to Magic beginners
0:31:54 Melissa’s CubeCon experience
0:42:05 Most memorable Cube draft at CubeCon
0:48:37 Why Commander became the most popular format
0:50:13 Universes Beyond design – Final Fantasy, Warhammer 40K, Doctor Who
0:59:52 Mentoring junior WOTC designers
1:08:53 Leading the design team – level-ups
1:11:23 Lord of the Rings for EDH was a design miss
1:15:55 Cards with too much game text
1:22:59 Wordy mechanics in LCI (Lost Caverns of Ixalan)
1:24:33 Saruman of Many Colors
1:31:35 Double-faced cards – too complex?
1:34:17 Melissa’s favorite Magic card of all time
1:36:37 Learning ice hockey – and how it’s similar to Magic
1:46:03 Melissa’s favorite video game of 2023
1:49:00 On being competitive
1:53:45 Lightning Q&A round
2:06:11 Wrap-up