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.

Hi, Mark! A templating question (with some recent card text for reference):

Whenever you commit a crime, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life. This ability triggers only once each turn.

Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on Dusk Legion Duelist, draw a card. This ability triggers only once each turn.To save space and avoid any sense of letdown, why does Magic not more frequently use phrasing such as the following?

The first time you commit a crime each turn, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.

The first time one or more +1/+1 counters are put on Dusk Legion Duelist each turn, draw a card.Unrelated feedback: I quite like these designs, which slot perfectly into a certain Burn deck of mine: Amped Raptor; Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury; Fear of Missing Out (such good art); Bloodbraid Marauder; also Inventor's Axe.

Two main reasons. One, it becomes a memory issue where you have to think back to what you did before you cast this spell. Two, it increases the chances that you miss a chance to use the card the turn you play it.

If/When:Artifact Creature - Blood

If, but I think the chances of it happening are better than it not.

If/when: nontoken card with usually-token subtypes (such as Army, Blood, or Role)

We’ve made artifact cards that are Clue and Food, so Blood could happen. Army wants to stay only on tokens made by Amass as it causes balance issues if we start making Army cards. (I realize Changeling exists.) Roles probably want to stay on tokens as it conveys token-ness.

Re: Mass nonbasic hate in standard and pioneer pretty please with a cherry on topI have read the threads from my previous questions, and I now understand why most of the extreme nonbasic hate cards, stuff like blood moon, back to basics, or ruination, can feel oppressive against decks with 2 or even 1 color, which is obviously not the goal of such cards. I do want to ask now, as question of curiosity more than a specific request: what kinds of things make hate cards go too far? Whether it be blood moon or rest in peace or engineered plague; at what point does a hate piece cause too much collateral damage (like blood moon), or at what point is the punishment so severe that it can fully lock some decks out of the game (like Rest in Peace). Where is the sweet spot, how do you know you’ve found it, and what kinds of knobs do you turn to help get there? I know that’s way more than one question and might be better suited as an article, but I’d still be fascinated to hear about it.

It’s just yet another reason why play balance is so difficult. Not enough and it’s not effective. Too much and it has impacts you don’t want. Mostly it’s a lot of trial and error in playtesting, and then some finger crossing.

You said a while back that it’s hard to make nonbasic hate that punishes greedy decks without also punishing fairer ones. Why? Blood moon or ruination seem like they are inherently fair. The degree they hurt people is directly proportional to how greedy their land base is. If ruination is too extreme for your taste, from the ashes is an even less punishing card, effectively just being a mass field of ruin. How are these cards too punishing to fair land bases?

I’m not sure everyone would agree that Blood Moon is “fair”.

Why does making a card have a basic land type not only add the appropriate mana abilities but also remove all other abilities. Like I get that makes blood moon work, but why didn’t you just write its effect as “non basic lands are copies of “Mountain” except they are not basic.”

Because it’s a lot of extra words for minimal gain.

You've said that R+D thinks snow basics were a mistake. Is that because your deck can play any number of them? Or is it because they also lend themselves to the entirety of the basic land eco-system of stuff like being fetchable by prismatic vista, safe from wasteland/blood moon effects, etc.?

All of the above.

Hello Mark,

What would you say the chances are of an eventual mechanic similar to Populate but that would instead work for noncreature tokens? Or perhaps even a mechanic that would let you propagate creature tokens AND noncreature tokens.

I'm asking because Populate was originally created 12 years ago and there are a lot more noncreature tokens nowadays (i.e. Treasures, Foods, Maps, Clues, Blood) so it would be neat if there was a mechanic that copied or cloned those types of token permanents.

There are always chances.

Do you feel like commit a crime has the blood token resonance problem? Love the idea mechanically but it doesn't feel obvious.

Let’s have people play with the mechanic before judging it. We found it flavorful in playtesting.