Mocking Magic: Timmy, Johnny, Spike, Jordan, and Blorbo
March 8, 2002, MtG Head Designer Mark Rosewater authored an article in his column Making Magic entitled “Timmy, Johnny, and Spike“, and the most annoying person at your LGS finally found something to base their entire personality around. In the article, Mark introduced the titular characters (Timmy, Johnny, Spike) as ‘psychographic profiles’ that the Research and Development team uses to separate players into categories so that they can better determine how to design cards that appeal to each player’s reason for playing the game. He has since written about the topic again and again. And even more times that I don’t feel like linking here.
So, what the hell is a psychographic profile? It’s essentially a kitschy Myers-Briggs-like pop-psychology-voodoo artifact, but instead of being a Buzzfeed-esque Sorting Hat for first-semester Psychology students it’s a powerful analytics tool used by evil, exploitative hyper-capitalist ghouls. Basically, they group up their potential consumers into neat little boxes based on personality traits to more easily manipulate them into buying crap they don’t need.
But what does all of that have to do with our favorite little pieces of cardstock with the pretty pictures on them and our best friends at WotC?
Well, as Mark loves to repeat when discussing the topic, he holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications from Boston University. While attending BU, he was required to take a course in Marketing, where his fascination with psychology led him to become enthralled with the concept of psychographic profiles and how they might be used to represent different aspects of the Magic community. In his most recent words:
“The core concept of a psychographic profile is that you need to understand who is purchasing your product and why they’re doing it. What is their core psychological motivation?“
So who are Timmy, Johnny, and Spike? For the purposes of this article, I will state in brief the most relevant takeaway for each. Timmy is motivated to buy magic cards because they want to experience something. Johnny is motivated because they want to express themselves. Spike is motivated because they want to improve themselves. I’m not looking to do a deep dive on these three psychographics today, but if you are interested in learning more about each of them I highly recommend you check out this article and Magic: the Gathering Drive to Work Podcast episodes 1228, 1230, and 1232. Then check out not a single other piece of media about them because these three have been talked about enough.
So Where’s the Beef?
If you’ve gotten this far without your eyes fully glazing over, you may be wondering why I’m explaining all of this and what the title of the article has to do with anything I have mentioned so far.
Well, to be blunt, I think these three psychographics were fine back in 2002 when Magic was a piddly little nerd game for turbodweebs to play between TTRPG sessions, but for Garfield’s sake they don’t cut it in 2026! Nerd shit is all the rage now! Dungeons and Dragons live shows sell out Madison Square Garden and Magic: the Gathering is so popular it is almost singlehandedly keeping Hasbro’s failing games company afloat!
So to keep up with the times, I’m looking to add two new psychographics to Mark’s list. But before I can do so, there is one little tidbit more of history I need to cover to help explain why.
Adding Some Flavor
I am not the first person to question the authority of God-Emperor MaRo when it comes to the psychographics. On December 21, 2005, in the second installment of the article series Taste The Magic, MtG Principle Art Director Matt Cavotta tried to speak up for oppressed gamers everywhere. Before the article was pulled from the WotC mothership for its heresy against MaRo’s divine will, Matt used the piece to introduce what he believed to be a new psychographic profile:
“Vorthos (His name is actually John, but since there’s already a “Johnny” in the mix, he opted to go with the name of his 16th level half-elven ranger/warmage.) is the guy who never puts more than one of any legend card in his deck because “it just wouldn’t be right.” He’s the guy who will only play with the Icy Manipulator from Ice Age because it’s the one they call the “Bone Crank.” He won’t play with the Fallen Empires cards with the stinky alternate art. Vorthos is the guy who started collecting cards because he liked the art, then read some Magic novels, then saw his favorite characters appear on some cards and decided to learn to play.
So… neat, right? We have a fourth category of Magic consumer to pander to: someone who prioritizes flavor, stories, and theming in their Magic consumption.
Well, not quite. Ysee, the know-it-all MaRo didn’t appreciate someone else stepping all over his turf, so he invented some new nonsense category out of nowhere to relegate Vorthos to. In a 2007 article in his Making Magic column, Mark psychsplains why Vorthos is not a valid psychographic:
“Why isn’t Vorthos a psychographic profile? Because at his heart, Vorthos isn’t about motivation. He’s about appreciation. Vorthos’ profile doesn’t focus on what psychologically drives him to play; it focuses on what he likes about the game.”
In this piece, Mark recontextualizes Vorthos as some made-up thing called an ‘aesthetic profile’, and poses them opposite “Melvin”. They exist on a spectrum of appreciation for flavor vs. mechanics, but they are not indicative of what motivates players to actually play magic. (Maro later drops the idea that they are opposing ends of a spectrum in this followup article)
Right. Okay. So… MaRo, Lord High Cardificier has spoken!
There are only three MtG player genders and everything else is aesthetic appreciation!
Except… Wait, did you catch the little mix-up in phrasing? The little trick Mark used to shunt Vorthos away into a closet of ‘aesthetic appreciation’ rather than a targeted psychographic?
Y’see, much like the God-Emperor himself, I too have a BA in Communications from an elite Massachusetts university. So when I was reading up on research for this topic, I caught a silly little rhetorical trick he used to weaken Cavotta’s argument. Unlike Mark, however, I did not earn my degree at some highfalutin Boston private school. I went to UMass, a public university, where I was taught to use my language skills to relay information to my readers, not attempt to swindle them with convoluted rigamarole.
Let me share a bit more of that 2005 Taste the Magic article Cavotta wrote that I think makes the switch-up pretty clear:
“There are a lot of Vorthoses out there. Some collect cards, but might not even play. Some have a hoot getting artists to sign their cards. Some don’t read flavor text ’til after they finish the novel in case it might spoil the ending. Vorthos understands that Magic can be fun even when you’re not playing the game. This column is for Vorthos, but the real point is that there is at least a little bit of Vorthos in all of us.”
To reiterate the corresponding strawman MaRo responds with:
“Vorthos’ profile doesn’t focus on what psychologically drives him to play; it focuses on what he likes about the game.”
MaRo asserts that Vorthos cannot be a psychographic profile because flavor is not the driving force for why someone plays Magic. This belies a fundamental assumption that Mark is making about Magic community members: that everyone who buys Magic cards plays the game. While this might have been true in 2007, it is at best woefully ignorant and at worst disingenuous to argue this today. Beyond that, even among folks who do play the game, that which drives them to start and continue doing so is not limited to the experience of play!
So clearly, it’s time to revisit Cavotta’s plea for representation. Unfortunately, MaRo has already tainted the name Vorthos with his nonsense about aesthetic profiles. It won’t fly anymore. Furthermore, his failure to adequately acknowledge this need for new psychographic profiles means that the development must now fall on someone else. Someone more qualified. Someone who not only has a ‘fascination with psychology’, but has a whole second Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. Someone who desperately needs an excuse to use this degree to make all of that extra work for the dual degree seem worth it.
Most of all, development must fall on someone better equipped to handle the responsibility of creating a profile so compelling and meaningful that Magic consumers long into the future identify with its name.
Introducing: Blorbo
Blorbo is a collector. Blorbo is an enthusiast. Blorbo is a name that was suggested to me by my friend Rose who uses tumblr much more than I ever did and said it has to do with liking stuff.
Blorbo is many things, but above all else, Blorbo is a fan.
Blorbo loves their favorite silly little character, or their favorite little setting, or their favorite little motif. Blorbo buys cards because those cards represent some specific story element that they greatly admire. Blorbo may or may not learn to play with those cards later, but if they do you can bet they will prioritize their favorite little guy, or place, or thing when building their deck! Blorbo’s primary motivation when buying a given Magic product is that their favorite thing is represented in that product.
Your friend who got into Magic because they wanted to buy Final Fantasy cards, and hasn’t really played outside of their preconstructed commander decks? They are probably a Blorbo. Your friend who has an ‘All of the Doctors from Doctor Who and also all the companions except that one I really hate’ deck they always play with? You know, the one who bought that terrible 14th Doctor Secret Lair card that’s now worth like $120? They will never realize that profit, so you can be sure they are a Blorbo!
As you can tell, Universes Beyond has brought a lot of Blorbos into the Magic community. How could it not? Blorbo is not a uniquely Universes Beyond psychographic, however. Blorbos have long existed in Magic: the Gathering. The Goat Guy (See Magic the Gathering Drive to Work Podcast Episode #1336) is a Blorbo about goats. Your friend who owns all the old Urza comics and swears to this day that Urza did nothing wrong is a Blorbo about Urza. Your friend with the Lazav commander deck in a Dimir deckbox that he holds with his hand that has a Dimir sigil tattooed on it is a huge dork, but also, a Blorbo about House Dimir. Your friend who has that one Liliana x Chandra playmat is not a Blorbo, and you should consider no longer being friends with him.
Further, I want to clarify that you don’t have to collect every copy of a card to be Blorbo, or only buy cards with your favorite plane on them to be a Blorbo. Everyone has a little Blorbo inside them. I, myself, am not primarily a Blorbo, but I’ve definitely shown my Blorbo side before. When I went to all those Lorwyn Eclipsed drafts it was because I loved my silly little plane full of funny guys, not because the cards were good or the draft environment was remotely functional. And that’s not even my worst Blorbo moment, I cannot articulate to you how many bad television shows I have watched just because there was a cute lesbian relationship in the main cast. That’s also Blorbo behavior.
Now, you might wonder, isn’t this just Vorthos again? Kind of, but not fully. Thanks to MaRo, Vorthos is more focused on the appreciation for flavor in the aesthetics of cards. Blorbo, on the other hand, prioritizes the lore in their brain over the lore in reality. For example, both Vorthos and Blorbo might build a Nicol Bolas-themed commander deck, but where Vorthos has cards representing his epic struggle against Tetsuo Umezawa, Blorbo’s deck is full of fancam edits of Bolas’ face on [Beloved Princess].
MaRo argues that Vorthosian appreciation for consistent flavor doesn’t drive people to buy the game, I argue Blorbian obsession with their specific little guys does. To design cards for Blorbo, make sure your cards feature their weird little guys.
It Takes Two
Keen-eyed readers will notice there is a second new name among the existing psychographics in our title. Who is Jordan? Why have I added yet another category to this tableau? And why is Jordan simultaneously the aspiring Magic Designer’s best friend and worst enemy?
Jordan is another Magic consumer whose primary motivation for buying MtG products is not predicated on the play experience of the cards themselves, but they take it a step even further. Y’see, Blorbo may not be motivated by play experiences, but something about the card’s design still motivates them. They love their little guy! Or their little place! Or their little tragic sapphic romance! And it’s right there on the card!
Jordan, however, is not motivated to buy cards for any reason that is printed on the card itself. To understand Jordan, we need to understand what psychographics are doing, and what the fundamental goal of marketing is in a capitalist mode of production.
The Part Where I Go on a Marxist Tangent
Money is a strange tool. It is both the means by which we provide valuation to a commodity, and in turn it paradoxically gets its value defined by the commodities it can acquire. When we add a dollar valuation to a product, we are saying to a consumer “This is what we think the value of our product is” and the consumer then compares their internal sense of value of the product we are trying to sell them to things of similar dollar amount designations in their life. In the case of an American, is this $20 draft experience plus the cards I get worth the same to me as 2 Big Mac combo meals?
As cardstockmongers, we have to understand that at their very core the value of MtG cards is not their material cost, nor their (collective) scarcity, and is only very little the cost of the labor to create them. No, the value of a Magic card is almost entirely subjective. That means what you are selling is quite literally worthless if you cannot convince people it is worth something.
We have a product. It has little intrinsic value. We want to convince people otherwise. This is where marketing comes in. For us, this brings us back to our psychographics. We have customers! They must find value in our crap! Where do they find it?
Well, Timmy finds value in the experiences of playing with our product. Johnny finds value in using our product to express themself. Spike finds value in dunking other people self-improvement through our product. Blorbo finds value in our product having their favorite thing on it.
Jordan is the psychographic who does not find value in our product.
Introducing: Jordan
Jordan understands that they are ultimately buying cardstock at an incredible markup. Intellectual property be damned, art be damned, play experience be damned; its ink on paper. But for some reason, all of these other idiots are buying this ink on paper, and it means something to them. It means a dollar amount to them. And Jordan likes dollar amounts.
So Jordan looks at the price trends. Oh, look there, the nerd company puts out limited edition products for presale. Well how have those sold? Sometimes well, sometimes terribly. But the poor selling ones end up doing very, very well on the secondary market later due to their exclusivity. Interesting.
So Jordan starts buying. Not the trivial, cheap, run-of-the-mill stuff. No, that will never turn a profit; Jordan wants the pricey stuff. The more the better. And Jordan knows that they don’t have to buy it all to help drive up the price, there are other Jordans around who will help too. Then, a few months later, when the idiots are most desperate, Jordan starts selling.
Jordan is a speculator. Jordan is a scalper. Jordan is not concerned with your pejorative labels.
Don’t be fooled though! Jordan is not a newbie to our scene. The explosion of other TCG prices did not invent Jordan, nor did the JRPG & comic collector hypes from recent sets. Sometimes Jordan knows the game better than ourselves. Jordan gave us the Reserved List. Jordan gave us the Seance buyout. Jordan runs a massive YouTube channel where he poses with boxes and boxes of products and still asks folks to be Patrons.
And the worst part is, we all have our Jordan moments. I once bought a precon I didn’t need because it had a card with a value higher than its MSRP. And Garfield knows I have scoured bulk bins for cards they have mislabeled. None of us are free from Jordan, as none of us are free from any of the psychographics.
