Bat

Balancing Flying and Reach Abilities

Is R&D down on flying or high on reach? From Midnight Hunt through Murders at Karlov Manor sets averaged just over 5 creatures with reach, topping out at 7 four times in those 11 sets. In OTJ there were 10 creatures with reach, and Bloomburrow has 13. A rather high number for a set where the theme is small woodland creatures.

Bloomburrow has more reach because two of the ten dedicated animal creature types (Birds and Bats) all have flying.Other than that, I think it’s just an ebb and flow thing.

Bats Birds Bloomburrow Creatures Flying Game Design Murders at Karlov Manor Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Bloomburrow Anti-Typal Cards Query

Were there ever any anti-typal cards in Bloomburrow? It would have been interesting to see how an otter interacts with rabbits, or how bats interact with raccoons, etc.

Making typal work was hard enough without adding cards to discourage it.

Bats Bloomburrow Kindred / Typal Otters Rabbits Raccoons

Bloomburrow Bats Type

Hello. ^_^Was giving any of the Bloomburrow Bats the Vampire type ever considered?

No.

Bats Bloomburrow Vampires

Balance Between Creativity and Feasibility

Part of Vision Design is pushing the boundaries of Magic (I believe). Sometimes, that means brainstorming wild successes like double faced cards or morph , but other times there are mechanics like the Animal batch or LCI’s gem resources that get killed by set or play design. Does vision design have limits on what they can propose? how do you foster outside-the-box creativity while keeping unfeasable ideas in check?

Part of pushing boundaries is doing things that end up being too far, but you don’t know the line if you never test it.

Batches Mechanics Morph Play Design Vision Design

Defining the Animal Super-Batch

The decision to define the animal "super-batch" by real-world animals seems very strange to me. I suppose it works on Bloomburrow (because you'd separately decided to make all the Bloomburrow animals "real" animals) but it doesn't make a lot of flavor sense. A resident of Ravnica, for instance, doesn't know that a boar is a "real" animal but an indrik is not. They think of them both as part of the natural order.Was it ever considered to define the animal batch by what people in-universe would think of as "animals", i.e., including mythological and fictional animals but excluding sapients and the other categories on your list?

The concern was what was intuitive to the people actually playing the game, not what fictional character might think.

Batches Bloomburrow Boars Flavor Natural Order

Possibility of a Future 'Mega-Batch'

If/When a Mega Batch in a set like Animal was going to be, or do the problems that sunk animal likely sink any future 'mega batch'?

If. I think animals was one of our best shots at a mega-batch, so it not working doesn’t give me a lot of hope.

Batches If/When

Batch Preview for New Type

Is it possible to use a batch to preview an upcoming card type, such as "[existing type], [existing type], and [new type] are blahs"? Or are Eye of Ugin style previews basically impossible without blocks?

It’s possible, but needs a compelling reason. It’s not dependent on blocks.

Batches Card Types Eyes Spoilers Eye of Ugin

Acknowledging Atraxa's Fall

FYI Atraxa's Fall has "Destroy target artifact, battle, enchantment, or creature with flying."

True.

Artifacts Battles Creatures Destroy Enchantments Flying Atraxa's Fall

Battle Removal Colors

"Which color(s) are the main one(s) for battle removal?Red and white usually have slightly more “combat tricks”. Green also always has a Giant Growth like effect that’s good in combat."I think this ask was about removing battles (the card type).

Red has direct damage, which removes battles. We haven’t chosen a color to destroy them.

Battles Card Types Colors Destroy Giants Green Red White Giant Growth

Primary Colors for Battle Removal

Which color(s) are the main one(s) for battle removal?

Red and white usually have slightly more “combat tricks”. Green also always has a Giant Growth like effect that’s good in combat.

Battles Colors Giants Green Primary Red White Giant Growth

Animal Appearance in Duos

From what I can gather all the duos, like Bakersbane Duo are in shards: Bakersbane duo is green but fits in a squirrel (bg) or raccoon deck (rg), making it a basically a Jund card. The black cards are an exception: Glivedive duo is in a wedge, Mardu (bat wb and lizard rb). Presumably the other black one will be squirrel (bg) and rat (ub)My question is: why? Is the pattern of shards intentional? Is the deviation to one color having wedges intentional?

The only guideline was each animal appeared in just two duos.

Bats Battle for Zendikar Black Colors Golgari (B/G) Green Gruul (R/G) Jund (B/R/G) Lizards Mardu (R/W/B) Orzhov (W/B) Raccoons Rakdos (B/R) Rats Squirrels Three Color Bakersbane Duo

Justifying Minotaur/Cow Distinction

I appreciate you holding the line on minotaur/cow. I think Minotaur as a type has immense unique resonance (mythological and game history wise). I also think “cow” has a lot of connotations that don’t align reasonably with the central vibe of the creature type, which is to say aggression. I could see a batch at some point that includes oxes, but I’d just say that, at least as someone running Minotaur decks for a decade and a half, I’d be very disappointed in a change.

I could imagine Ox becoming Cow. I don’t see Minotaur becoming Cow.

Batches Creatures Minotaurs Oxen

Balancing Creature Types in Bloomburrow

Hi there Mark!I know previews for Bloomburrow aren't quite over just yet, but one thing that I've noticed that I'm a bit sad about is how some of the creature types seem to be more favored than others in terms of number and rarity. This seems especially apparent when you look at Frogs vs. Bats.I was REALLY into the aesthetics and world building given to the bats of Bloomburrow, but looking at the spoilers so far, Bats have 50% fewer spoiled cards than Frogs (10 vs. 15), as well as only 2 rare bats revealed thus far compared to Frogs having 5 rares and 2 mythic rares.

The ten main animals are not exact in number, but they are in the ballpark of one another.

Bats Bloomburrow Creatures Frogs Mythic Rares Rares Rarity Spoilers Rarity

Insights on Animal Megabatch

Can you share a little bit about the Animal megabatch? I had been hoping for something like that.

The basic premise was making a batch that was much bigger than five items, but something so intuitive that players wouldn’t need a written out list. Animals worked well for about 95% of the card types, but had problems with the last 5%.

Batches Card Types

Batching Cards Potential?

Hi Mark, could the rules batch cards that have two different spells on them? Can they mechanically group together split cards, certain MDFCs, cards with adventures?

We for sure can list it out. I don’t know if the rules can handle the description.

Batches Modal Dual Faced Cards Rules Spells Split Cards

Bloomburrow Thematic Construction

You've said you've been seeding the Bloomburrow creature types for a few sets now. Was the decision to make Aclazotz a Bat God, and thus introduce bats and bat themes to the white/black Ixalan vampires, at all influenced by the Bloomburrow bats? There are a lot of pretty obvious similarities (colors, animal type, religion) between the two archetypes across the sets.

If you see any relevant animals in the last Magic “year”, we were very aware of their Bloomburrow needs when we added them to files.

Bats Battle for Zendikar Black Bloomburrow Colors Creatures Gods Ixalan Orzhov (W/B) Vampires

Bats in Bloomburrow Lore

I’d like to say thank you for not making the bats in Bloomburrow vampires. Or at least not making vampirism their main thing in the lore. Vampire bats are cool but overdone considering only 3 out of over 1,400 bat species drink blood (and those 3 species of vampire bay are only found in Central America and South America.)

In Bloomburrow, the Bats are the clergy.

Appreciation Bats Battle for Zendikar Blood Bloomburrow Story / Lore United States Vampires Vampire Bats Vampirism

Bat Warriors Nickname

Are Bat Warriors known as Combats?

To those in the know. : )

Bats Battle for Zendikar Humor Warriors

Formatting Change Query

I’m personally fine with the shortening of “enters the battlefield” to just “enters”, it’s what I say out loud most of the time anyway, but wowza something feels super wrong reading “whenever a creature you control enters” and it not being worded as “whenever a creature enters under your control”. It gives me the same feeling as ordering water and getting carbonated strawberry milk, or taking a bite of a BLT and finding an entire uncut pickle inside. There’s literally nothing those two have in common with magic cards, I’m just using them to explain my level of discomfort and confusion. What led to this formatting change?

It allows us to use one less word (“you control” vs. “under your control”).

Creatures Enter The Battlefield Fight / Bite

Lizard Shortage in Bloomburrow

I'm enjoying Bloomburrow previews far more than I expected. It might be too early to tell but so far I've been disappointed by the shortage of lizards revealed. As a player who does not love the friendly furry creatures (bats included), I hope to see more scaly friends.

It’s the black/red draft archetype.

Bats Bloomburrow Creatures Draft Formats Lizards Rakdos (B/R) Red Spoilers