Over the years, Magic: The Gathering has had a handful of unoffical expansions. Middle Ages, for example, started off (officially) in an unofficial capacity, but then Wizards of the Coast came with their lawyers and stopped that.
Over the years, Magic: The Gathering has had a handful of unoffical expansions. Middle Ages, for example, started off (officially) in an unofficial capacity, but then Wizards of the Coast came with their lawyers and stopped that.
In the 1990s, another such unofficial expansion, Astral Ways, came about as well. Created by a player named Mike Elliot, Astral Ways (not to be confused with the Microprose Astral cards) would come to be the originator of a number of future Magic: The Gathering mechanics (in part because Elliot would become a MTG designer with WotC).
For one, there's the Astral mechanic, which would make its Magic debut in Tempest and be called Shadow. Elliot's set also had a creature type known as slivers, as well as a mechanic known then as Planeshift. It would eventually make its official MTG debut as Echo.
As the story of Astral Planes goes, there were two worlds: the normal world and the Astral world, complete with a gateway between the two. Someone wants to open the door, and the creatures from both sides more-or-less duke it out. During the
frey, one of the good guys gets shredded up with his remaining pieces becoming the slivers.
Really, it was Magic: The Gathering in everything other than name.
While the storyline seemed pretty good, the expansion was never realized.
First of all, Elliot didn't work for Wizards of the Coast yet. Second of all, if he tried to bring it up into a physical form, the cease and desists of other unofficial Magic expansions kind of scared others away -- Elliot included.
Really, it was kind of a tall order anyhow.
After all, Astral Ways was essentially Magic: The Gathering fan fiction put into card form
But it's fan fiction that became real.
Elliot was hired onto the staff at Wizards of the Coast in January of 1996. Not too long after, some of his Astral Ways elements began to make their way into official MTG sets.
While developers do come out with new mechanics and abilities and creatures each expansion, it is rare for them to come out in another capacity of sorts before then. In a way, Astral Ways broke a mold, leading to WotC hiring more and more people who played the game of Magic .
These days, WotC finding employees who love the game with an undying passion is no longer the exception as it was in Elliot's early days, but more of a rule.
If you want to be like Elliot and join the team at Wizards of the Coast working on Magic: The Gathering, you can find WotC's current list of job openings here.
