Do you have a number one with a bullet character you were most excited to design for Marvel? And can you pin it to tell us one day?

I’ll share this. When we were first pitching to Marvel, Aaron Forsythe came to me to design a bunch of cards to use in the pitch. He told me to mostly use high profile characters, but one should be a deep cut (to average Marvel fans, not to hard core fans). I chose one of my favorite characters and designed a super fun card. Later when I was leading the vision design of a Marvel set, I put that creature in. I believe it won the rare poll and is still in the file, pretty close to my original design (although numbers might have been tweaked). When the card comes out, I’ll identify it.

Do you happen to have any anecdotes about Sheldon Menery you could share?

I first met Sheldon when he and I were both judges on the Pro Tour. My memory of our first meeting is he was assigned to help me in the Feature Match area. He walks up and says, “I’m Sheldon. Tell me what you want me to do.”I last saw Sheldon at Magic Con Philadelphia. R&D (Aaron Forsythe, Dave Humpherys, Mike Turian) was doing a signing and Sheldon came to do a signing at the table next to us. I remember watching how much joy he got from interacting with the public. In between those two events, which were over twenty-five years apart, I interacted many, many times with Sheldon. He was a person of great passion, who cared a great deal about how what he did impacted those around him. Magic lost a giant ally today, and he will be greatly missed.

Hey Mark,I'm a week late on my birthday question, but I would love to hear any trivia tidbits on the set that came out when I first started, Lorwyn!

Lorwyn was Aaron Forsythe’s first large set lead design. He tried for most of the design to get a treasure mechanic in the set. It ended up becoming hideaway.Happy Belated Birthday!

Hi Mark, it's my birthday this week! I'm wondering if you have any trivia about Fifth Dawn or the Sunburst mechanic. It was one of the last sets I played before drifting away from Magic for many years, but I still have fond memories of trying to make a five-color Sunburst deck work back then. Thanks!

Sunburst was the brainchild of Aaron Forsythe. He was on the Fifth Dawn team as a reporter to be able to write about the experience. He was so good, we hired him into R&D. He also designed scry in the same team. Happy Birthday!

Who gets the final word on a card design: you, Council of Color, or Aaron Forsythe?

The set designer has the most final say, but there are many groups that have to interact with which includes play design, editing, the Council of Colors, the Rules Manager, digital, organized play, and upper management (including Aaron).

Maro I turned 32 yesterday! I would really like to hear some trivia on my favourite keyword, Scry.

Scry was designed by Aaron Forsythe (in Fifth Dawn - his first design team), because he wanted a good smoothing mechanic. We later made it evergreen because it was so good at smoothing. Happy Birthday!

A hearty thank you from one very excited squirrel fan, keep 'em coming 🐿️

Will try my best.I do want to stress Aaron Forsythe is responsible for most of the squirrel goodness in MH2. My design of Deranged Hermit years ago has paid off. : )Go Aaron! - 🐿

Mark - I understand that you and others at WotC sometimes have to defend unpopular choices. I get it. But the gaslighting on display from Forsythe and Heggen yesterday (and to a lesser extent, your "Some Answers" post) was nothing short of astounding. Really really disappointed in what I saw. Defending company decisions is one thing. But thumbing your nose to community backlash and essentially saying "no, you guys are all wrong" is something else entirely. This is not how you put out a fire.

I, in no way, said that players shouldn’t feel how they’re feeling. I haven’t demeaned a single person for holding an opinion. I’m getting questions about why we did things and I’m trying my best to explain the reasoning behind it. I’m not saying you have to like or agree with the reasoning. I’m simply trying to answer people’s questions in as frank and straighward a manner as I can. That’s what I do on this blog.

Hey Mark! First I want to Thank you for all that you do, I know you are a constantly busy guy. Second I had asked some birthday trivia recently, and I I just wanted to try it again; Do you have any trivia on Aaron Forsythe’s Bird’s vs Bee’s Decks? I heard he made them just for you. Thank you Mark!

Aaron first made the decks to spellsling with at an event he and I were going to. I think he was messing with me because of my dislike of how bees have been responsible for a number of green color pie breaks.Happy Birthday!

You've had a busy weekend- did you manage to see Endgame yet?

I saw “Avengers: Endgsme” Thursday night with Aaron Forsythe and loved it!