When working on Rise of Shadows at Blizzard Entertainment we had an extra slot for a mage Epic, and not much time left to experiment.

I knew a lot of mage players loved playing a bunch of spells in one turn, using mage’s cost-discounting effects to turn 1-cost and 2-cost cards into free flurries of magic.

However, once you played a bunch of cards you had nothing left over. Your hand was empty. This meant the flurry of spells either ended the game in a bang, or left you defenseless for multiple turns with not much to do. It was too sharp, and hard to support for casual play.

Mana Cyclone solves this problem. It says, “Hey, you like playing spells? Great! Here’s a bunch more spells as a reward. Have fun!”

Now players got to fire off a flurry of spells, and instantly restock their hand. The new cards were random, so it was exciting to see what you’d get. A lot of mage cards at the time also generated random spells, so you could always imagine the party would keep going on future turns.

It worked. Mana Cyclone made a huge splash on release, and some players still list it as their favorite card ever. Not everyone liked playing against all those random spells, but playing with it felt awesome.

Even if you LOST the game, getting off a big Mana Cyclone felt like a win. It created a mini-quest to do during the game, and doing it made those turns feel awesome.

Designers often use rewards to get players to do something they wouldn’t do otherwise, so this approach can feel counter-intuitive. I often see pushback when proposing these designs, because they look redundant at a glance. They’re not. They reinforce the fun.