"I will note that the price of boosters didn’t go up." - Maybe what you mean by this is that the wholesale price didn't go up, but (at least in my country) the price of Play Boosters is more than the price Set Boosters were. Maybe this is a distributor issue, but the fact is I've had to pay more since the change.

Wizards is charging the same price for a play booster that we charged for a set booster. The price of a booster box went up because set booster boxes were 30 booster packs and play booster boxes have 36 booster packs.

Hi Mark,
Is it possible to reduce the variety of rare lands that come out of Commanders of the same set?
I bought the Doctor Who Collector Booster Box that is full of them and this inhibits me from buying the Fallout collector booster box, because I would find the same lands (too many) of the Doctor Who edition with different art, instead of the new cards created ad hoc.
50 rare lands are an obstacle that will stop me from buying the next UB collectors too. Is there a way to drastically reduce this number? Thanks

Land design is one of the most restricted veins. In addition, there is a lot of demand for more printings of certain lands. Those two factors combined push us doing more repeat lands in Commander products.

Re: Play Boosters. Your article didn't indicate how many booster packs would be in a Booster Box. Will it be 36 like Draft or 30 like Set?

The article did specify. Play booster boxes will have 36 booster packs in them so you can run three drafts between two booster boxes.

Hey Maro, I know this isn't your department but you're kinda the feedback guy! The March of the Machines collectors booster box art is the best graphic design I've ever seen on a magic product (and that's a high bar). Out of control cool. Street art cyberpunk comic book? Sign me up for a pre-order! However, I was extremely disappointed that the style of art on the box isn't part of the art design for the set. I know art gets commissioned for sealed product, but what goes on the box and the packs usually reflects the feel or visual style of the cards inside, and this awesome design isn't reflected in the set itself. I'm still looking forward to my shiny cardboard, but it is a little bit of a feel bad to pre-order expecting one thing and getting another. Then again, having packaging design so good it sells itself is not the worst reason to cause some minor disappointment. Thanks for the great game!

We try hard to make the packaging look different to make sure that people know which product they are buying. For some of those products, they are all (mostly) pulling from the same group of cards, so it’s a tricky balance to establish that every booster conveys what’s in it yet not look too much like other products from the same product line.

Loved the bonus sheet podcast. The behind the scenes ones are my favorite. Are the hoppers ever programmed to effect draft booster box distributions of rares or special cards like “masterpiece” cards

The hoppers are just that, a bin full of cards. The programming is about which hopper bin to drop for each slot. We could put sone special cards in their own hopper and drop it into a booster pack on a very infrequent rate.

It's a real shame Unfinity got delayed, I've been playing this game since the first Kamigawa set on-and-off but Unfinity was going to be the first booster box I would ever buy. Is there anything extra you can talk about the set while it's still a few months away?

It’s the first set that I led every aspect of the design from exploratory design to vision design to set design. I’m super proud of how it turned out.

Mark, did the Dakkon art of the booster box not receive a card version?

We often commission art just for the box.

Last night while opening boosters noticed the prerelease bundle boosters open C to R/MR then to token while the booster box boosters made in Japan opened exactly opposite. Token - R - C. Why the difference? Is wizards aware the difference between US and Japan pack order?

Every printer has a different drop order depending on their machinery.

For Jumpstart, does each Booster box come with 24 unique packs, or is there the possibility of getting duplicate packs in the same box?

It is possible to get duplicates.

I'm really excited for Ikoria, but was wondering well the variant art be available in regular boosters at all or will it be collector's edition only?

The showcase art (the comic book-styled art) and the borderless planeswalkers can be found in draft boosters and the Godzilla series are box toppers in the draft booster box.