The evolution of Magic: The Gathering prototyping
In a Drive to Work podcast, Mark Rosewater describes how Magic card prototyping has changed over the years.
In the early years, the cards were just little slips of paper (smaller than an actual Magic card). They often had quirky placeholder artwork. Here are some examples (the screenshot was taken from this video):
The next step in the evolution was to print onto stickers, and then put the stickers on top of old Magic cards. Initially the stickers were very basic, just containing text, but over time they also added images.
This was clearly an upgrade, because the card backs are identical to other Magic cards, meaning the playtest cards could be mixed in a deck with existing Magic cards. The cards are also robust, unlike the paper ones used before.
What could be better than stickers? Printing actual Magic cards, which is what they were able to achieve next. They were able to source blank cards, where the front was white, but the back was a normal Magic card. They can then print directly onto these cards.
It’s interesting how things have evolved. The podcast also touches on other elements of prototyping, so is well worth a listen.