Walking Textbook



Timmy, Johnny, and Hate Spike



Magic Psychographics and



League of Legends











Heroes’ Podium art by William Murai

By now, I’m sure that regular readers know how I, love, Magic. The quantity of decks I want to build is climbing steadily towards “unhealthy”, and oftentimes, when I’m not playing the game, I’m writing about it: the evidence sits here on this ambulatory blog.

What this blog has not betrayed about me is that I am also into other games (gasp!) RPGs, shooters, the odd puzzle game; I’ve played the gauntlet. Right now, though, we’re here to discuss a specific game: I am a perennial player of League of Legends, Riot Games’ hit Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (generally shortened to “MOBA”). Between my years of Magic and my years of League, I’ve noted a few similarities between the games, their design, and their playerbases. In this article, I will attempt to make some connections between the two, and work out how this could guide future League of Legends design.

Before we delve into the design of League, however, we need to meet three characters: Timmy, Johnny, and Spike.





Psychographic Violence







Hall of Triumph art by Ryan Yee

Timmy, Johnny, and Spike are not actual people. They are terms, invented years ago by Magic’s head designer Mark Rosewater, to characterize three “psychographic profiles” that cards are designed for. These profiles are motivations for which people play the game, and they are often stereotyped as follows: Timmy likes to play big stompy creatures, Johnny likes to assemble elaborate combos, and Spike likes to win. However, there’s a great deal more to them. I go by the mnemonic “Experience, Expression, and Expertise.” Let’s look at these in greater detail.





Timmy: Experience







Worldspine Wurm art by Richard Wright

Stereotypically, Timmy loves nothing more than playing colossal spells. He could go drafting and windmill-slam that 15/15 with Trample that splits into bits. He’ll giddily cast a tremendous sorcery to take control of every creature on the board. And he might just play a card that could destroy the world just to see what happens.

But all of these scenarios are oversimplified, and draw from the fact that Timmy enjoys Magic for the experience, the “visceral thrill”, of playing the game. Yes, some Timmies relish the massive creature or splashy spells, but many come to the table for social interaction, or just for an experience that plays differently every time you shuffle up.





Johnny: Expression







Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker art by Steven Belledin

People think that Johnnny is the “combo player”, focused on that esoteric interaction that will suddenly mill your entire deck or Grapeshot your life total and every creature you love for ten billion damage. But Johnny as a profile is far more subtle.

Building a Magic deck is an impressive creative endeavor, and when you run through the numbers, it’s easy to see why: with over 13,000 unique cards, there are more possible decks than there are atoms in the foreseeable universe. Looking at those near-infinite possibilities, Johnny sees the deck as a creative expression of the self. His hope is to be able to demonstrate the neat thing his deck is meant to do, which can be, but is by no means always, a combo. Johnny has no problem losing 90% of the games he plays, so long as he gets to show off and take pride in his deck the other 10%.





Spike: Expertise







Dark Confidant art by Scott M. Fischer

Most people think that Spike likes to win, and “most people” are right about most Spikes, but there are other kinds of Spikes out there. Generally, Spikes like to demonstrate their expertise, and while winning games is a common way to do so, there are other methods for Spike to express his dominance, such as having a larger collection than anyone else, or knowing more about the lore than their friends.





Many Games

“Magic is many games to many people.”

–Mark Rosewater

Now that we’ve met our cast of psychographic characters, I want to segue into an important, and oft-overlooked, element of game design: knowing your audience.

Whichever way you slice it, the games industry is an industry. Every studio, from the tiniest of indies to the biggest of triple-AAAs, is ultimately making a product for consumers to purchase enjoy. Magic is no exception, and part of the reason that it’s persisted for 21 years and counting is because Wizards understands their audience. They design cards for Timmy, Johnny, and Spike; they make the occasional chaotic rare for those who like to roll the dice; they retail preconstructed Commander decks that reprint staples for existing EDH players and offer a straightforward path into the format for new players; they assemble From The Vault boxes for collectors, and to increase accessibility to unique cards. That’s all well and good, but how does this relate to League of Legends?

My experience with League of Legends can be summarized thusly: I enjoy playing it, and I certainly enjoy winning it, but I am awful at it. My kill-death ratio is rarely positive. I have mediocre-to-passable map awareness. And though I’m familiar with the metagame, I don’t know how to plan strategically during a match. The sum of this is that I don’t win very often. So why, you might ask, do I keep playing?







Possibility Storm art by Jason Felix

Let’s double back on the psychographic profiles. We’ve established that many (though not all) forms of Spike enjoy winning games above most. In the world of League, I mustn’t be a Spike, or my frequent losses would have driven me off a long time ago. Now, when do I play League? When all of my friends are. Well, if I’m playing for the social interaction, for the viscerality of slinging spells (usually alongside friends), that would make me a Timmy, would it not? This is where I ran into an issue: Timmies are not always welcome in League of Legends.

On the whole, the League community seems extremely Spikey. And the game creates a wonderful environment for Spikes: it’s rife with strategic complexity, in counterpicking champions, laning methodologies, item sets, and more. But just imagine entering a 5v5 game, and trying to explain to a group of strangers that winning is not the primary reason you are here. You would likely be met with confusion, if not downright hostility; I know because I’ve observed it. I’ll do my best to avoid the topic of toxicity, which is a discussion for a different day. I’m here to talk about game design here, because I think that is where this particular problem lies.







The Circle Unbroken







Story Circle art by Alan Pollack

One of the reasons that Magic has space for Timmy, Johnny, and Spike (and all manner of other players) lies with the fact that all kinds of arenas exist for play. This includes both format and location: a kitchen-table EDH game is liable to be a better environment for Timmy or Johnny as compared to a Sealed tournament at a local game store, where Spike might be more inherently comfortable. Both of these factors matter matter. Of course, League doesn’t really have a “location”, unless you count the separate continental servers. But it does have formats.

We don’t usually refer to them as formats, but gametypes are the same basic idea. Most commonly, we have 5v5 on Summoner’s Rift, 3v3 on the Twisted Treeline, Dominion on the Crystal Scar, and All-Random-All-Mid (ARAM) on Howling Abyss. But every few months, Riot has briefly brought in alternate game modes, like One for All, Ultra Rapid Fire, and most recently, Ascension. These have been, in my opinion, the perfect place for Timmies in League, and it’s because of a concept called the Magic Circle. No, that’s nothing to do with Magic: The Gathering: the term comes from cultural anthropologist Johan Huizinga. In his book Homos Ludens, he describes the Magic Circle as the unconscious social contract that players make when entering a game, in which they agree to abide by the game’s rules.







Circle of Flame art by Jaime Jones

Here’s my favorite illustration of this idea. Let’s say we sit down to play a game of chess. The goal, ostensibly, is for one player to capture the other’s king. Knowing this, I pick up a pawn, knock over your king, and declare victory. Yes, I’ve technically fulfilled the win condition, but I broke the Magic Circle. The rules of chess state that pawns can only move one space forward, and that they can only capture diagonally, and I just ignored them, along with a whole host of other relevant rules.

Here’s the kicker: the Magic Circle applies to social rules as well as mechanical ones. Let’s look at two games of 1v1 EDH that are identical in every way, except that Game A is part of a tournament at a local game store, and Game B takes place at the kitchen table with one of your friends. In Game A, your opponent casts their Commander, and you immediately tuck it. Strategically, this is an excellent play against a deck that relies upon its general. If you were to make the same exact play in Game B, it probably has still put you in a favorable position, but you also might have severely disappointed a friend by negating their ability to play the game as they intended. The Magic Circle in Game A includes the formal EDH rules and the clause, “do your best to win.” In Game B, the Magic Circle includes the formal EDH rules, but to your friend, it might also contain the clause, “we’re here for both of us to have fun.” If you initially agreed to the same implicit contract as your friend, then you broke the Magic Circle. If you had a different contract to begin with, a proper Magic Circle was never created.







Full Circle







Time Warp art by Jon Foster

At long last, this brings us back around to League of Legends. LoL does not have “locations” that you play it, in the way that Magic can take place in a store or at the kitchen table. You’re just in a queue. And in just about every 5v5 or 3v3 game I’ve ever experienced, the Magic Circle contract involves “do whatever you can to win”, and does not include “we’re here for all of us to have fun”.

But then we have game modes like the aforementioned Ultra Rapid Fire, which drew players exclusively for its silliness and capacity for ridiculous plays. I believe that many League Timmies such as myself found refuge in URF, and other temporary gametypes.

So, what exactly am I getting at? What I am not suggesting is that URF or One For All be available all the time. What I might suggest, though, is that Riot establish a rotating playlist exclusively for these outside-the-box game modes, perpetually providing a home for Timmies. It could be an environment with a more casual Magic Circle, one that could draw people like myself back into the fold of League.

I hope you’ve all enjoyed this somewhat-unconventional look at a non-Magic game. Next week, we return to EDH with the third and final portion of the Walking Atlas Deckbuilding Atlas (for Commander).

But until then, happy planeswalking, everyone.





