Un-Rules Question: If I play Vorthos and name someone who has an entire set named after them (Avacyn with Avacyn Restored, Urza with the entire Urza block, etc.), does their ability work with any card from that set?

It does not.

Way back in one of your Drive To Work podcasts, somewhere in the 740s, you spoke of the "Forbidden" mechanic. Is this something we might see some time? It sounds really cool.

It was a mechanic we made for Avacyn Restored that we didn’t use where the cards couldn’t go into your deck and you had to cast cards to shuffle them in. I recently did a podcasts on mechanics we haven’t used and I talk about it.

My birthday was last week, I was wondering if I could get trivia on innistrad!

Innistrad was originally schedule to be just one set in the world in the slot where Avacyn Restored came out.Happy Belated Birthday!

Was there ever a small set planned to follow Rise of the Eldrazi, to be the summer set in the off-year between 10th edition and a hypothetical 11th edition? How about for Avacyn Restored, which would have also hit an off-year if you hadn’t gone to annual core sets?I just find it really interesting that the first two large/small/large blocks were in what would have been years where you wouldn’t have had a core set to publish in the summer, and wonder if they were ever planned as Lorentz/Shadowmoor style 2+2 blocks.

Neither of those was planned to have a following small set.

The scrapped “forbidden” mechanic from AVR sounds similar to “learn/lesson” from STX, but the lessons were all *weaker* than normal cards, not stronger. Was “learn/lesson” based on forbidden, or am I just drawing connections where there aren’t any?

Lessons were actually a riff on inventions, a mechanic from Kaladesh that we didn’t end up using. While there are some similarities (getting things from outside your deck), they played very differently.

Are the Wolfir still around? I liked them in AVR but there weren't any in the "Werewolf set".

They are no longer around.

Expectations due to the initial name of "Innistrad Werewolves" aside, a lot of disappointment is also due to MTG's werewolf history. Of Innistrad's 5 tribes WWs are the ONLY one absent from other planes, absent from Avacyn Restored, & not getting a commander deck. Their mechanic was abandoned as they became Eldrazi in Eldritch Moon, & day/nightbound is a soft reset, etc... Given all this I was hoping MID would go above and beyond w/WWs. Not just be a normal Innistrad set w/minor theming.

Obviously, we could always do more than we did, but I do want to stress that we did more with Werewolves than we ever have in any set before. • The set has more Werewolves than any other set. Yes, I get it’s only 7 more, but when the previous record was 12, that’s a big jump up. • We did Werewolves as a vertical cycle in a third color. • We did Werewolves as one-of’s in a fourth and fifth color.• We brought back our Werewolf planeswalker• We designed what we think will be the definitive Werewolf Commander, something players have been begging for years.• The set’s main mechanic is a tweak on the “Werewolf mechanic”. • The set’s story revolves around the Werewolves. I think calling Midnight Hunt “a normal Innistrad set w/ minor theming” is unfair characterization of the set. It’s clearly a Werewolf-focused Innistrad set. I get maybe not Werewolf enough for some players, but it’s not like Scourge where we sold it as “a dragon set” and it had four Dragons (and a bunch of Dragon-themed cards) in it.

Mark, you said that Spirits and Zombies will get new cool stuff on Innistrad, but what about Angels and Humans? No love for the best tribes of Innistrad?

Humans gets goodies too. While Innistrad has Angels, other than Avacyn Restored, it hasn’t really been about Angel tribal.

Was the learn mechanic inspired by the "forbidden" mechanic from Avacyn Restored development?

No, it was inspired by the invention mechanic from Kaladesh (they never made it to print).

It appears my birthday trivia request earlier this week was eaten by the void. I was wondering if I could get some new trivia on my first set, Avacyn Restored.

Avacyn Restored design had a mechanic called Forbidden which were powerful cards that couldn’t start in your deck. You would cast cards to shuffle them into your deck. It was later changed to Miracles. Happy Belated Birthday!