Bonus Sheets

Approach to Color-breaking Cards

Hey Mark! I'm wondering, why do you allow yourself to reprint color-breaking cards? It gives players, especially newer players, the wrong idea about the color pie. Instead of reprinting Chaos Warp, why not either (A) print a different, non-breaking card that achieves whatever it is Chaos Warp achieves for red, or (B) change the color pie so Chaos Warp isn't a break?

The problem is players want access to the cards. The compromise was to not add them to formats that they aren’t legal in. That’s why color pie breaks won’t get reprinted in premier sets (not counting bonus sheets that don’t change card legality).

Bend / Break Bonus Sheets Card Printing Color Pie Format Legality Premier Sets Red Reprints Chaos Warp

'What If' and 'Dream' Sets

Re: “it was all a dream” setWhile not literally a “dream”, “what if (thing that didn’t happen)” has been a theme we’ve seen before. We got a secret lair with planeswalkers stylized around themes magic hasn’t had (or at least, hadn’t yet had at the time), we got several “what if they were compleated” alternate art cards in All will be One, and in Bloomburrow we’re getting a bonus sheet of “what if they were on Bloomburrow”. I understand these aren’t literal in universe dreams, but they are cards that take place in a vague “other” make believe land

“What if” is also on the short list, but is different than a “in a dream” set.

Art Bloomburrow Bonus Sheets Compleated Lands Planeswalkers Secret Lairs The short list

Availability of Sliver Cards

For me, who likes Sliver,I've never been happy about the Sliver cards from SL.Why do I have to collect cards that randomly appear from all over the world?Why does everyone else have a set that they can be sure to get, but Sliver doesn't have?I've never complained directly because I liked mtg, but I had to comment on the topic of Hatsune Miku's bonus sheet, where people collecting Sliver were expressed as if they had no complaints.I wish the borderless ‘Sliver Hive’ was more readily available.

I’ll pass that note along.

Bonus Sheets Sliver

Reprinting Color Pie Breaks

Are bonus sheet cards allowed to be pie breaks, since they don’t affect format legality? I get why desert twister wasn’t in thunder junction or the big score, but was very surprised it didn’t appear in breaking news or the commander decks

There are other rules about color pie breaks beyond the “we don’t add them to formats that don’t have them” rule. Another one is “we try not to reprint them if there isn’t a lot of player demand for the reprint”. Yes, some are staples in their format, so there’s a demand, but we try to reprint color pie breaks that we don’t have to.

Big Score Bonus Sheets Card Printing Color Pie Commander Decks Desert Twister Format Legality Reprints Rules The Big Score

DFC Sheet Rarity Guidelines

I can’t find uncut DFC sheets and I was wondering when you have DFCs (or other bonus sheets), what general principles can you give us for rarities and number of cards for our custom sets? It seems to change every time, but are their guidelines that we can understand like how many cards can be on a sheet or if multiple rarities are on a sheet, how many times a a single card of a rarity must appear on that sheet? Just so we can approximate something close to the restrictions you have. If only to breed creativity. ;)

Just pick your favorite DFC set and use those numbers. The DFC sheet numbers are all about collation and having cards show up at the right ratio, and we don’t get into collation specifics.

Bonus Sheets Card Printing Custom Cards Dual Faced Cards Humor Rarity Rarity

Monocolor Support

I agree that basic land type matters effects require a crafted limited environment, but there's so few of these, and you have other avenues for printing them while sidestepping limited now: Commander products, Universes Beyond, bonus sheets, fixed slots in boosters, etc. There's already a big disincentive towards running monocolored in most Eternal Constructed formats, twice so for Commander, so why not give monocolored a big shot in the arm?

We do make them from time to time, but they have to fit in the set we release them in. For example, they’re an odd fit in anything but a monocolor Commander deck, and we just don’t make many of those.

Bonus Sheets Boosters Card Printing Commander Commander Decks Constructed Eternal Lands Limited Monocolor Universes Beyond

Hope for Dack Fans

Really happy about the recently previewed flip walkers of MH3, but as much as I love Ral Zarek, I was really hoping to see a new Dack Fayden. Between that and having OTJ being "Crime/Heist set", not even seeing a reprint of him in bonus sheets makes me a bit sad. Is there still hope for Dack fans or should we just let him go?

There’s always hope. I do think we’ll see another Dack Fayden card one day.

Bonus Sheets Card Printing Dack Fayden Modern Horizons 3 Outlaws of Thunder Junction Ral Zarek Reprints

Rules-compliant Un-cards

Could we see rules-compliant un-cards appear in The List and/or bonus sheets?

I’m not quite sure there’s a means to make them eternal-legal.

Bonus Sheets Un-sets

List vs Bonus Sheet

Is the list different from bonus sheet?

Yes. For example, the bonus sheet has a crime theme and shows up once per booster pack (draft boosters). The List doesn’t have a connective theme (it’s valued reprints reskinned to Thunder Junction) and shows up at a lower frequency than the bonus sheet.

Bonus Sheets Boosters Card Printing Draft Boosters Reprints

Strixhaven Popularity Evaluation

Oh hi Mark! When evaluating the popularity of Strixhaven for the Rabiah scale, did you consider the effect the bonus sheet had on the set's rating/sales?

We do market research on the world. It’s not just based on sales.

Bonus Sheets Rabiah Scale

Booster Pack Feedback

I might be a victim of statistics, but play boosters have felt a little rough for sealed in both MKM and OTJ (in average). Obviously it's playable, but I find myself a lot of the time short of a cool color combination by just a few more cards. (And to be clear, I mean including everything even the "bad" commons). Is this a common complaint? Is there something that can be done? Maybe a little fewer multicolored cards or fewer unplayable/unsupported cards in the bonus sheet? Maybe boosters could go back to guaranteeing one common of each color?

This isn’t a complaint I’ve been getting. Note 95% of sanctioned sealed in the world is at prereleases.

Bonus Sheets Boosters Colors Commons Murders at Karlov Manor Outlaws of Thunder Junction Play Boosters Prerelease Sealed Format

Traps Mechanic Potential

With Archive and Mindbreak Trap showing up on the Thunder Junction bonus sheet, have Traps as a mechanic moved down the Storm Scale recently? Do you imagine we'll ever see trap specific support, like tutors and recursion, or is that too much for cards that are supposed to be more silver bullety?

I think we might see a set with Traps again, and that set could have Trap support. I’m a little dubious of Trap tutoring though, as the element of surprise is key.

Bonus Sheets Mechanics Mindbreak Trap Storm Scale Tutoring

Confirmation of Early Set Design

How early in design is the exact number of cards in a set locked in?

Pretty early. Our default sheets are locked in. The big question is do we have extra sheets (double-faced cards, bonus sheet cards, etc.)?

Bonus Sheets Set Design

Issue with Reprinting Oko

I don't like the argument that because original Oko is at a higher rarity on a bonus sheet, it's impact in Limited is minimal so it's fine.

Not everyone plays on Magic Arena and does Limited events dozens of times. Some people only play Limited in paper a couple times or at a pre-release and it's extremely discouraging when the one or two times you play limited, you get bodied by a notoriously OP card that isn't even a mechanically new card.

Magic makes numerous different products, various products where they can reprint cards that aren't also used for Limited (i.e. collector boosters, FNM promos, Secret Lair, pre-constructed Commander decks) or even high powered reprint Masters sets that can be drafted.

I don't see why Oko needed to be in the Play Boosters and I thought the same about Ragavan in March of the Machine. If it's thematically important to release the reprint associated with the set, then why not just do it in collector boosters?

One thing I don't like about all of these bonus sheets is it means in nearly every limited environment with them, the best and most powerful cards are oftentimes old cards that I'd played with or against rather than the new cards I want to be excited for.

Let’s see what the Question Mark’s think about this specific topic.
Should Oko, Thief of Crowns be on the Outlaws of Thunder Junction Breaking News bonus sheet?Yes No Don’t care See Results

Blogatog / Tumblr Bonus Sheets Boosters Collector Boosters Commander Decks Limited Magic Arena March of the Machine Oko, Thief of Crowns Outlaws of Thunder Junction Play Boosters Promos Rarity Rarity Reprints Sealed Format Secret Lairs

Enjoyment from High-Power Reprints

As an example of why some of us are happy about high power bonus sheet reprints: at pre-release I had Stoneforge Mystic and Gold Pan, and realized it turns Stoneforge Mystic into colour fixing! It was such a delightful micro-discovery. So I totally disagree that these cards somehow make limited less fun

There is a lot of fun discovery.

Bonus Sheets Colors Gold Pan Limited Mystic Reprints Sealed Format Stoneforge Mystic

Exclusion of Creatures in Thunder Junction

Do you know why there were no creatures on the Thunder Junction bonus sheet? I assume it was a conscious choice to exclude them, but do you know why that choice was made? There are some I can think of that would have been fun inclusions and still have very crime-y sounding names

I think we wanted all the cards to not just be crimes but have names that sounded like crimes.

Bonus Sheets Creatures

Color Balance in Bonus Sheets

If you have trouble finding enough low rarity cards of a certain color for a bonus sheet theme, could that color get 1-2 less bonus sheet uncommons and get instead an heavy surplus of commons and uncommons of that color on "the list" slot, or is giving the fans of the color less new card arts still too much of a downside to try that?

Bonus Sheets and the List don’t have to be completely balanced colorwise.

Bonus Sheets Colors Commons Rarity Rarity Uncommons

Assessing Aftermath Set in Bonus Sheet

Has it become clear yet if cramming the Aftermath set into a bonus sheet was a success or not? Seeing how bomb heavy the prerelease was made me dislike that solution to your self-made problem quite a lot. Stoneforge Mystic and Oko are incredibly warping in limited.

You’re conflating the bonus sheet of reprints with the Big Score collection of new card designs ported over from the Aftermath-ish product.

Aftermath Big Score Bonus Sheets Limited Mystic Prerelease Reprints Sealed Format Stoneforge Mystic The Big Score

Querying Draft Test Process

Does the design team test drafting sets or do they just throw unstoppable bomb rares in a set and say good luck to whoever has to face Oko, thief of crowns in draft?

Set design and play design test the sets with all the cards including any bonus sheets.

Bonus Sheets Draft Formats Oko, Thief of Crowns Play Design Rares Set Design

Limited Environment Concern

Still early days, but a lot of us feel the OTJ limited environment is far too rare-driven. Between the play boosters, the bonus sheet, and the power level we find the luck of the pack dramatically outshines the experience of deckbuilding.

Do others share that feeling?

Bonus Sheets Boosters Limited Outlaws of Thunder Junction Play Boosters Power Level