When I first saw Apex Devastator, I remember seeing the card say Cascade, Cascade, Cascade, Cascade, thinking that had a very clean yet Mythic feeling. When developing a new ability or using an ability in a new way, how do you determine when it's correct to write out the keyword four times versus saying "Cascade four times". In a similar way, how do you decide, for instance, in the case of Gitaxian Spellstalker, whether it should be prowess, prowess, as opposed something like Prowess 2?

Templating has an emotional impact component. While clarity is usually the driving factor, excitement is also important.

if trapeze artist returns to my hand when i flip it, does lunarch veteran trigger?

It does. It entered the battlefield.

Howdy Mark!I sat with my thoughts and the replies you've given recently about not changing Minotaur or Merfolk to Ox and Fish respectively, and I gotta say, I can't square this circle.You say that WotC won't be changing these specific humanoid-animal races because they have prior mythological notoriety. But to be honest, one could make that excuse for every humanoid-animal race. There are a lot of Mythos that exist throughout the world, and finding a name for every humanoid-animal race wouldn't take too long if someone took the task seriously. I say this to show it doesn't feel like a really consistent or genuine reason to resist a rule that WotC is taking big lengths to adhere to (they are doing errata, which you've said is something that isn't done lightly).However, my biggest issue comes down to consistency with this "rule" you are mentioning. WotC changed Cephalids, Viashino, and probably Homarids soon so that they would fall in line with a rule that WotC wants to follow. Nothing drives me more insane than a rule that isn't applied equally to all, especially when as I mentioned above, the reasoning for the exception doesn't feel like a particularly strong one; at the very least, it doesn't feel strong enough to resist a rule WotC is taking seriously enough to errata 100's of cards so they fall in-line with said rule.I try to be open-minded as often as possible, but even after mulling over the things you've mentioned here on Blogatog, I don't think there is anything you can say that will change my mind on this. I suppose I will just have to sit and wait patiently until ya'll decide to finally finish what you started.Yours Truly,A fellow Ape

The thing you’re missing is the bar is not “does a mythological version exist anywhere in the world?” The question we ask - “is there a popular and well known version of it?”Here’s a different way to think of it. If we picked 100 random people (not specifically Magic players) and gave them a list of creature types, which ones are words they know and which ones aren’t?Some they wouldn’t know because they’re made up things we created that have no well known equivalent. Outside of those, we want to use words people recognize. It makes the game more resonant and lowers the barrier to entry. Our fanciful made-up terminology does have a place - in names and flavor text (aka the text areas focused on flavor). In mechanical rules space, familiarity is more important.

I've noticed in MH3 that some cards making tokens of existing cards (Such as Tarmogoyf and Spellgorger Wierd) have the mana cost of the original card. Does this mean past cards that did this (such as the many spellshapers and most recently Roxanne Starfall Savant creating Meteorite tokens) will be errata'd to include the mana cost?

I don’t believe so, but that’s more a guess than something I definitively know.

Talk on Kindred cards started my mind back to an old question I had. Was the intention for Kindred Shapeshifter cards with Changeling that any search your deck type card with any creature type search parameter could retrieve them?

Yes.

Do you remember the other four movies Mark Gottlieb listed when he first pitched New Capenna?

The Obscura - Oceans ElevenThe Maestros - John WickThe Riveteers - The WarriorsThe Cabaretti - The GodfatherThe Brokers - LA ConfidentialI give more detail in my first Streets of New Capenna preview article:

Hitting the Streets of New Capenna, Part 1 | Magic: The GatheringNote, a lot changed about some of the families from their initial pitch.

hi Mark,I wanted to ask about Haste in Black. It just kinda hit me that for a while we had a few hasty creatures in mono-black.

Notably ELD had Rankle, Clackbridge Troll and Deathless Knight (green-black but can be played in mono-black). There's also Banehound in WAR and Vengeful Reaper in Kaldheim (which I probably played in standard more than it should be played tbh).

Was this an intentional experiment? A quirk of design that 'just happened' because its a tool that is always there and happened to be used more than usual? If it was an experiment, it seems like the verdict was 'no haste in black creatures', but I'd be interested in hearing more about it!

Haste is, and has been for a while, secondary in black. It’s used less than green these days which is also secondary in haste.

Zodiac Monkey and Tree Monkey were both reprinted in 9th edition because at the time they were the only Monkeys in Magic. Ninth Edition was when creature types would only be updated if cards were reprinted and this let yall remove Monkey as a type and roll them into Ape.

FYI

Do you have a DtW where you break down Beast a little more as a type? I'm trying to figure out where it fits in the devolution of the type line, and I just read "Human Barbarian Beast," on [[Barbarian Outcast]],"Beast Horror Spirit," on [[Chupacabra Echo]],"Nightmare Beast Elemental," on [[Brokkos, Apex of Forever]], and"Plant Elemental Beast," on [[Carnivorous Moss Beast]], so it feels like there's been a few changes on where it should be placed?

Beast is one of a small handful of creature types that can fill both race and class slots depending on how it’s used.

I would like to invoke birthday trivia in order to receive some monkey/ape themed trivia.

For years, R&D has had a running jokes that Apes hate artifacts. That’s why a bunch of artifact destruction cards involve Apes.Happy Birthday!