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.

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.

were bats ever a consideration for the black cards? what made you go with squirrels? is it their inherently fiendish nature? inquiring minds and such

Bats are the white/black archetype.

could we see an A+B mechanic designed around A exiling cards and B getting cards exiled with mechanic A back? Kinda like an inverted version of the processor setup from BFZ where you do it for your own benefit?

We need to be careful that a mechanic can’t get back cards that were exiled by a card where the intent was it wasn’t to return.

Hi mark I saw you respond to a request for future eldrazi sets so i wanted to make one too, if possible please bring back eldrazi processors they were awesome! we so rarely see cards that interact with exile and as more cast from exile etc mechanics get created id just love to see a viable effect like that again. Shout out to wasteland strangler in particular!

Processors weren’t super popular. What did you all think of them (from Battle for Zendikar).

"Introduce mechanics, then expand upon them *is* how blocks worked."In a nutshell, this kind of design sense should work. After looking at the reason why blocks were retired, the second sets selling less, I think that blocks existing wasn't the problem. The power level was.I would say the culprit is actually the power level. You can have the most beautifully flavourful world you ever made, but Modern Horizons has shown that power level is what sells. Battle For Zendikar is a good example here. I *LOVE* the flavor of this set. Standard aside though, there isn't really any reason to look at any of the mechanics here. Consume is an interesting mechanic, but there aren't any viable strategies that can utilize it. Devoid gives colored decks the ability to play colorless spells, but there aren't really any payoffs to using colorless spells over the colored spells, especially when the colored spells are more mana eficient.This idea is backed up by War of the Spark. That set, to my knowledge, sold very well. It had a very strong flavor and it took the idea of planeswalkers to a brand new level. But unlike Battle for Zendikar, players had a solid reason to play these cards. This is just my two cents, and I can definitely be wrong here. I'm sure the person who works for Wotc most definitely has a better idea on why blocks were retired than the person who doesn't work for Wotc.

The 100%/80%/60% trend of block sales was consistent regardless of set power level. Mirrodin, for example, definitely wasn’t too weak, yet had the same trend line.

If/When: Eldrazi returning in a standard-legal set?

I assume when, but probably not as high an as-fan as Battle for Zendikar.

Do you think we will ever get exile matters as a subtheme,?

Battle for Zendikar had one.

Hi! I'm curious about your thoughts on the frequency of DFCs in recent sets. I believe 8/11 standard-legal expansions in the last three years have had DFCs in them. Is this a temporary multi-year arc, or do you think they will stay this integral to the game going forward? (I personally like DFCs occasionally, but it is a lot to read and adds a lot of board complexity IMO). fwiw I really liked the execution in BFZ

The pendulum swings and we’re at the higher end of the spectrum. DFCs have prove to be a useful and popular tool, so we use it more than we once did.

What is your opinion on the design template of cards costing a certain color to cast, but only having a meaningful impact if other colors are spent as part of their cost? For example, in original Ravnica, when a card would say, "if [color] was spent to cast ~, [do this]." Or, in a similar vein, Converge in BFZ.

It’s useful in certain types of design.