Ben Weitz
@bsweitz123
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Mathematician, Gamer, Human. Enjoys Frisbee, Starcraft, and Chocolate as well. Senior Game Designer #WotCstaff , opinions are my own. He/Him
Joined April 2010
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The most elegant card I have ever or will ever design releases in 2024. Very excited for it to be released!
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The AOC stream is doing a great job to raise voter awareness by displaying the negative consequences of failing to vote
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You may notice there are no +1/+1 counters in ONE. This was decided pretty early on, and Play Design had to institute a swear jar for every time one of us suggested a +1/+1 counter somewhere.
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I've been pretty silent because I've had so many feature matches, but I TOP 8D A PRO TOUR!!!! I'm even first seed going into the Top 8, so I'll get the choice of play/draw. I'm so happy this has been a longterm goal of mine for so many years.
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I am using a dating app for the first time in a long time. The app says “your turn” after a match messages me. I then mentally referred to the match as “my opponent”. I have a lizard brain.
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TLDR: I'll be joining Play Design this January.
Long and Interested in Reading:
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BRO was the first set at WOTC that I worked deeply on the Limited format from Set design onward. Here are some commons I'm most proud of.
#WOTCstaff
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Today I was promoted to Senior Game Designer
#wotcstaff
. Happy to have taken a chance on designing for the game I love and excited for what the future holds. I’ve got some nice cards in the pipeline to share with y’all :)
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Vegas is a place for bad decisions, so on this day approximately 12 years after I started building my cube, it's finally 100% proxy free. Happy 25th anniversary!
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Been a while since I've done a design story, but I love the history of this card. Normally Black has to lose life or sacrifice something to draw cards, but here the card draw is already attacking the main thing keeping you alive (your remaining 6 cards) so we left it off. (1/2)
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The LCI prerelease is almost upon us, and since the set is one I worked on so closely, I like to share some design stories on cards that I think might be interesting. I'll post these from time-to-time and I welcome questions. Today I'll talk about these four uncommons!
#wotcstaff
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It feels weird to tweet this to the public but I wanted to tell my close friends and I didn't want to do it 100 times. My father passed away peacefully last night. We were able to say our goodbyes, but I wish we had more time. He was incredibly supportive and I'll miss him dearly
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Kai Budde is legendary, I grew up playing his World Championship preconstructed deck with my friends. Stories of his historic runs were passed from veteran to newbie in every card store I've ever played at. A very fitting honor for the PotY trophy to be named after him.
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Here are the top Masterpieces (read: my personal favorites) from each of our tent pole sets released this year. Honorable mentions to Venerated Rotpriest, Faerie Mastermind, Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, and Tishanas Tidebinder.
#wotcstaff
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Ok this is my Lava Axe alignment chart, hopefully its readable. I have a new appreciation for people who make memes.
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I was asked which of six people were most likely to 0-3 a team draft and said
@jkyu06
. He instantly demanded a draft to fight for his honor and then promptly 0-3d
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By popular demand, here is my list of Biggest Masterpiece in the common/uncommon category from each of our tentpole releases this year. Honorable mentions to Gleeful Demolition, Meeting of Minds, Monstrous Rage, and Buried Treasure.
#wotcstaff
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Got as high as
#2
with this last weekend before I was asked to stop playing on ladder. Been bouncing around 6-20 the last few days. Inspired by
@PrediMTG
casting Bontu vs.
@MSigrist83
in Rivals. Particularly proud of this one, its an amalgamation of previous failed ideas of mine.
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I hear AOC is trying to play Among Us with streamers, which seems bizarre to me because I would think she spends enough of her time trying to vote out liars and murderers
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So so so happy to finally take down a whole GP, and it feels even better to do it with my own deck I've been working on for a month. Thanks to my testing team for being great, funny, and lifting my spirits on Friday. Ben Weitz and thought-knot seer, name a more iconic duo.
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By far the most bizarre thing about today is how many Magic players are talking about how great MTGO is.
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OK here are my Biggest Disasters (read: my personal least favorites) of each of our tentpole sets for this year. These represent ONLY MY PERSONAL opinions. If you love some cards on this list that's awesome, different things appeal to different people.
#wotcstaff
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Should I be happy or sad that I never make the cut for people mass-tagging wotc employees with ridiculous questions?
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#MTGBRO
was my first set working on Set Design, so it's the first one you'll find bsweitz original designs (as opposed to bsweitz-approved number changes). These are some of the cards I'm most proud of that I had major contributions to the final design.
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I found one of the playtest decks from LCI drafting. See if you can spot the changes
#wotcstaff
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Ok fine here is the Objective Red Masterpieces from the last year of sets. It’s objective because I’m the Red color councilor, so you must accept my decree. Honorable mentions: Barbed batterfist, Chandra, Hopes Beacon, Grabby Giant, and Etalis Favor
#wotcstaff
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The card draw ability was added in the first place because the play pattern of "Cast the Demon, then kill everything to not die and wait you out" wasn't very fun. We wanted to make sure the caster dies first because of that and the ability also makes the card tell a nice story.
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It's been a long time since I've made a tweet about game design so I figure I'd talk about a few cards/changes that I really like from the last year of Standard sets.
#wotcstaff
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The most elegant card I have ever or will ever design releases in 2024. Very excited for it to be released!
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One of my personal design heuristics is that it’s important to give creature-heavy, especially typal, decks some light interaction to make games more interesting. I end up pushing for a lot of cards like these, that can change dynamics a ton vs baneslayers/sheoldreds
#wotcstaff
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Won one of the Standard pods at Mox Bellevue with UW crafting. I love setting up thran spider into glyphbridge. I love standard. Beat BR midrange, monored, and Domain.
#wotcstaff
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Emilie and I broke up today. No malice and nobody’s fault, just incompatible life goals. Over the last few months she changed her mind about wanting kids, and I dont. Feels weird to say this publicly, but it’s the easiest way to not have the same conversation over and over.
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When designing multicolor signposts for Limited, we think a lot about what the color combo needs to create good games of Magic. The signpost is the easiest way to directly affect an archetype, since changing most cards has knock-on effects. Tagging
@mtg_ds
for value.
#wotcstaff
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Got some really bad news today, would appreciate any positive vibes from people.
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Rankle is one of my favoritely designed cards recently. Powerful but you have to work for it, lots of interesting decisions, and lots of counterplay.
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Submitted my favorite design I've ever made in my two years working at WOTC and it made it into the set. Excited for y'all to see it in two years or however long it is
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I have spent many a happy hour playing with Braids and forcing my opponents to make difficult choices. I've sacrificed everything from my third land to Bloods to Nixilis planeswalkers. Hope the world enjoys one of my favorite cards from DMU!
#WotcStaff
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I've seen a lot of negativity on Twitter recently so I'm going to share one of my favorite jokes.
Why did Oko fall down?
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Because he was imbalanced.
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I thought it might be fun to dig through our final draft day of LCI and look at the kinds of changes we make. We do multiple drafts and if we make changes we have to scribble them on the cards for subsequent drafts that day. Curve swaps, rarity swaps, and other small changes!
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I know by now we all sound like a broken record, but maybe if enough of us say something they'll hear it. I miss GP coverage :(
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I think this is one of my peak design moments. We wanted a piranha card to show off the fauna of the region, but the team was very stuck. We went through tons of nonsensical rares until finally we tried this simple concept that does the thing that cartoon piranhas do!
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A slightly different discussion. I believe these five keywords have done the most net good to magic.
#wotcstaff
1. Flying
2. Dredge
3. Landfall
4. Flashback
5. Storm
HM. Convoke
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This quarantine has taught me at least one thing. I really, really, really, really HATE Arena.
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I woke up and went to work today and all I did was play Magic and draft. So I guess you're welcome, 15-year-old-Ben.
#WOTCstaff
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Down 20 lbs from my heaviest in August. Have 10 to go before I hit the goal I set for myself. Very happy that I can do this when I really set my mind to the task.
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I’ve talked a few times about my favorite cards from BRO, but I’m bored enough over the holidays that I figure I’ll do it again. This time I’m going to mention 4 of the trickiest cards Play Design changed a lot, where I thought we did a great job.
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I am at the airport waiting to fly one-way to Seattle for the foreseeable future. Lived in the Bay for the last 9 years, and CA for the last 13. Really the start of something new, a soft reset after the worst of covid. Nervous and excited
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(Potentially hot take) Competitions are stressful and always will be. Not everyone can easily maintain a healthy relationship with competitions and it's important to understand that and take care of yourself. But this isn't the fault of the competition.
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Fun fact: this was called “smugglers copter” a lot during development.
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Be honest. Rank yourself in
-Remembering triggers
-Hollywooding
-Rules Lawyering
-Twitter game
-Likelihood to get a concession
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There was recently some shakeup at the MTG Council of Colors, so I will now be representing the color Red, my favorite color. Feel free to tell me all the things you love and/or hate about Red cards!
#wotcstaff
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I turned 31 today. This was probably the worst year of my life for various reasons, but it had bright spots. I Top 8d the PT Finals, I switched careers to
#wotcstaff
, I made a bunch of new friends online playing video games. Hoping I can keep the good and toss the bad next year.
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This card is just for nobody. It isn't particularly cool, it has a lot of text, and it's a reference to a 20-year old card that few remember. It isn't resonant. Archfiend of the Dross is this card but done right.
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The removal of Limited from PTs is an absolute travesty. WOTC doesn't even make a big effort to broadcast the RPTs, can we please not pander to "the viewers" if we aren't even willing to put in high production value?
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I'm nominating Veil of Summer for second-worst worded Magic card of all time.
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One of the cards from NEO I'm most proud of is Reckoner Bankbuster. That card went through like a hundred changes but the final product is a really satisfying card to play with. Seeing it in a variety of decklists across archetypes makes me happy.
#wotcstaff
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Can we get a
@MatthewLNass
@kanister_mtg
heads-up bo7 KCI grudge match? I will happily donate/sub/whatever to make this happen
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@flooey
There are many ways to break the symmetry and kill your opponent first. The easiest one is to mill them with e.g. Restless Reef after casting this.
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I was the lead designer (my first) for these decks! Predicting the future is not easy, but I think the decks turned out pretty fun and competitive.
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Watched John wick 3 and at first I was upset about how all these assassins think they can take on the GOAT so easily, but then I figured that being an alive assassin self-selects for overconfidence because they never failed.
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Ten is just too large a number for Breach. It has a bunch of power in the high mill number, and a lot of games end by milling an opponent out instead of using the cool creatures you get. It breaks the color pie by giving you tons of selection from the top of the decks.
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An equipment that crafts seemed like a good idea at the time, but there's just a ton of weirdness with this card that makes it complex and clunky. It unequips when you craft it, it specifically calls out sacrificing something other than itself, it only hits creatures, etc
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Got a super sweet gift as part of being on the Play Design team! Look at my lil' Devil friend, isn't he so cuuuuuute?
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This is the ninjas deck I've been ranking up with. I never played with Okiba Reckoner Raid in FFL but decided to try it out after the buzz it's been getting in Limited and it's been decent. The Spectral Adversaries are flex.
#wotcstaff
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I've been out of academia for 5 years, but after some new Twitter follows I recently stumbled upon a series of papers that continue the line of work that my thesis was part of and answer some open questions I left behind. It was cool to read the intro and see citations of me
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I wrote another article about Magic! This topic was a pretty popular discussion point this week.
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The team I'm on added an innocuous, mid-power level common to a draft format and it immediately made it onto all the playtesters' favorite cards feedback. FeelsGoodMan
#wotcstaff
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Oh I forgot to mention it a few weeks back, but Supply Drop in BRO is a fucking work of art with how it bridges so many archetypes
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Yep, top 8 at
#GPDC
. Needed a Q for Richmond so pretty happy, but really want a trophy so gotta keep my head in the game.
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Thank God I actually completed one of my longstanding goals in competitive Magic before everything went to shit
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Everyone out here trying to compare insane magic accomplishments, but forgetting about the GOAT
@Smdster
being the only person in history to get a negative pro point from an event.
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Fuck I just realized I have to come up with a new interesting fact about me when I'm icebreaking with all my new coworkers
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Some things never change. Six years later, I still have that excitement, nervousness, and anxiety the night before the PT. Love my decks, and I think these formats are very skill-rewarding. Will try to take things slow and methodical, and play my very best.
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My two goals for the last long time have been to Win a GP and to Top 8 a PT. I've completed both of those goals in early 2020, but the tourney isn't over yet, you all can watch me win the whole tournament next week :D
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Just saw Uncut Gems for the first time. I feel like the movie was an artistic success in that I probably felt the way they wanted me to feel while watching it, but I cannot say that I enjoyed the experience.
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What kind of psychopath pushes an enormous UX change to production on a Saturday morning??
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Just drew into presumably top 8 at
#GPPhoenix
. GPs in this city have been kind to me lately. It's been a goal of mine to win a GP for a while so we ain't done yet.
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I had to leave my living room in disgust after watching my roommate draft Rotting Regisaur in the Vintage Supreme Cube.
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Is it weird that I look back on the Hogaak PT with fondness now?
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Some of my thoughts on today's announcements: . These are mostly my reactions and feelings about the announcement and the direction Magic seems to be going. Happy to discuss nuances.
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I've been dieting for a few months now and I've officially lost the weight I put on since the pandemic started! Next on my list is to lose the weight I put on since I gained access to free peanut butter-filled pretzels.
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Some people dont want to listen to music every second every day and it confuses me
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This is a Gix’s Command admiration post. Commands are fucking hard to design and this one has all its modes chosen a decent fraction of the time. It also lets you feel very smart by combining modes. And the art is sick.
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When questioned about whether this was a good decision I responded with "I dont give a FUCK"
He may deny it, but
@bsweitz123
rattled from a day of what he’d describe as poor play in the players tour,stands up from his bed in our hotel room, grabs a stack of draft commons says “F%#* it this is going in my GP deck”. And at that moment, a Satyr was born.
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Steak is the most overrated food by a wide margin
Please quote tweet this with your most controversial food opinion, I love controversial food opinions
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Today I turn 30 years old, quite a milestone. Many parts of my life I really like, some parts I really hate. COVID has turned the world into a strange place, but I feel like I should start trying to change the parts of my life I don't like when I can, or it will be too late.
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I think I'm going to do a mental exercise of building a Monored Cube. I sketched out some archetypes and I think there's (barely) enough distinction between them that it could be fun. If it looks sweet I'll build it physically. Posting this for accountability.
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@thebloodsower
@PlayMTG
Lmao “who determines intentionality” idk maybe the people with the title Judge?
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@BenS_MTG
this is a really bad take imo. Trump shredded tons of norms and actively spread hateful rhetoric. He was most definitely a unique and dangerous president. It was clear what he was after the first 9 months, and probably before that.
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What's going on in the capitol is a disgusting attempt to undermine and stall the constitutional process to transition power. The white privilege and double-standard is in full view, as I'm sure there would have been scores dead and hundreds hospitalized if they were BLM protests
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