Mark Rosewater is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to Magic content creation. There's a lot be learned from almost anything he says, so when he talks about Magic's most influential sets of all time, we should probably pay attention.

Lesson One - Getting Gold Right

Two of Rosewater's top three sets on the list have multicolor as a key feature. Ravnica and Invasion both leant heavily on their gold cards, but in very different ways. Invasion, way back when, encouraged players to put as many colors as possible into their deck. Original Ravnica block (and most Ravnica sets since then) was about making streamlined two-color decks. Indeed, Ravnica's guilds have become the de facto names for their color pairs - which is a whole other level of influence.

Nowadays, we take gold cards for granted, and there are typically at least some in every set. Before Invasion, though, multicolored cards were much more infrequent Invasion showed not only that multicolored cards could be more widespread, but also that, when done right, they could be the glue that holds an entire set together.

In a similar vain, Ravnica showed another way in which multicolored cards could be a mechanic unto itself. At the same time, it really helped to define the identity of each color pair in a way that has shaped Magic ever since. Red-Blue "spells matter" arguably started in original Ravnica and is still the default archetype for Izzet 20 years later. This aspect is so important, you even see it in other sets on the list. One of the reason for Innistrad's inclusion is how it vastly improved on limited design. An important aspect of that was "secret gold" build-around cards like Spider Spawning and Burning Vengeance.

Lesson Two - Flavor Matters

Even to a Spike-y Limited player like me, lore and world building matters. You could argue that this point applies to every single entry in Rosewater's list in some way, but it is particularly salient in a few. Innistrad is number two on the list, and largely because it redefined what "top-down" means in terms of Magic design. A huge part of the plane's enduring popularity is based on how well it captured the vibe. There are lots of sets on the list where the world itself was part of a holistic experience, like the adventure world of Zendikar having traps and quests, the metal world of Mirrodin being full of artifacts or the Greek history world of Theros being full of, well, Greek history.

Then there are sets that re-examined an existing plane. Here, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty stands above all, but I'd argue Dominaria and War of The Spark are working in similar space. What is Dominaria like now? What would happen if a huge planeswalker war came to Ravnica? These sets all showed that you can breathe new life into an existing world, and have it be compelling.

Lastly, but maybe most importantly, Lord of the Rings sneaked onto the list in 20^th place. I'm not a big fan of Universes Beyond as a concept, but I can't argue that LOTR didn't influence Magic moving forward. It was the first, some would argue it was the best, but it certainly laid a lot of the foundations for what a good UB set should look like. It helped that LOTR is a very easy fit for Magic's typical high fantasy setting, but it also maintained its original flavor and paired that with mechanics that suited it. Without LOTR being so well-done, maybe Final Fantasy ends up being a mess like Marvel's Spiderman.

Lesson Three - Magic is Still Evolving

If you look at Rosewater's list as a whole, you will notice that there are sets from throughout the game's history. Obviously, the lasting influence of recent sets is impossible to gauge right now, but we still have releases on the list that are just a few years old. LOTR and Neon Dynasty still feel like they came out yesterday but both have cast their shadow on the near future. Would we be going back to Lorwyn if Neon Dynasty hadn't worked?

Of course there are more old sets on the list; there was more to innovate on in the begin and more to define outright. But there are plenty of sets from what is currently the middle of Magic's life. Magic 2010 reinvented core sets, Future Sight created the bonus sheets and, in a way, prototyped the Masters/Horizons set. In an era where Magic seems to be undergoing a huge change in direction, I find it reassuring that things can - no, will - change again. As more and more of the focus shifts to periphery products, it's nice to see that sets like Lorwyn Eclipsed can still happen.