Hey Mark! How was the reception of Llorwyn back in the day? Tmk tonally it was much lighter than the average set. Did it have any issues being cutesy/lighter subject matter?I’m looking forward to Bloomburrow and was wondering if Llorwyn had any specific effects on it also

I believe the only block to perform poorer than Lorwyn, in our key metrics, was Champions of Kamigawa.

Mistform Ultimus deffinitely isn't from Champions of Kamigawa

Yeah, it’s from Legions. I’m not sure why I keep messing that up.

Hi Mark! By the ancestrall right of birthday trivia, may I request some obscure knowledge about Spirits or old Kamigawa?

An early version of Champions of Kamigawa had a mechanic representing martial art moves. It didn’t really fit with the rest of the set and was removed. Happy Birthday!

I love the flavor of not using +1 +1 counters for all will be one. There is no growth on phyrexia so it makes sense. I hope the limited environment plays well. I dont think there have been any limited formats without a stat modifying counter. Was the limited environment tricky to design?

In Champions of Kamigawa, only one uncommon and one rare used +1/+1 counters.It requires designers to avoid a few common tricks we use, but no it wasn’t too hard to design. There are a number of designs where oil counters acted similarly to +1/+1 counters.

Hi Mark :) I have a quick question: Why are divinity counters and indestructible counters two different kinds of counters? I play a myojin/shrine proliferation commander deck that would function a bit better if those were the same type of counters. I guess I was just curious as to why they were indifferent and if there were any plans to "errata" them to be the same type of counters since they are functionally equivalent. Thanks!

One just predated the other. I think the Myojin would have had indestructible counters in Champions of Kamigawa if such a thing existed at the time. I’m not sure what functional errata is created if you change one into the other.

In your Kamigawa teaser you said "a popular legendary creature from Champions of Kamigawa block returns in a new form" Now that the set has released can you tell us which card you're referring to? I swear this is talking about Hidetsugu, but my friends argue its Kiki-Jiki. Please help settle this

I was referring to Kiki-Jiki.

Can you go into the reasoning behind why each of the cycles of shrines trigger at different parts of the turn? (CHK at upkeep, NEO at end step, and and three of the M21 at beginning of precombat main-phase)

I think they decided to have the timing maximize with the effect.

If Champions of Kamigawa block's mechanics were so disliked, why did you feel the need to bring one of them back? Couldn't you have just made a set that had only new mechanics?

That was definitely an option, but since we were returning, we felt we should do due diligence. Channel ended up allowing us to keep the as-fan of artifacts and enchantments up while still having the necessary amount of spell effects.

"• a popular legendary creature from Champions of Kamigawa block returns in a new form" - Isn't that the already previewed Hidetsugu?

It’s referring to a different legendary creature.

Do you have data on what percentage of current players were around for the original Kamigawa block? It’s wild to me that I’m 30 now and we’re returning to the plane that debuted shortly after my bar mitzvah.

We have data somewhere, but I’m not familiar with it. Our player average is slightly over ten years, so a assume quite a bit less than half were actively playing when Champions of Kamigawa came out. It will make up a higher percentage of the enfranchised players though.