Do you think we will stop seeing the word planeswalker on nonplaneswalker cards. For along time, removal had to also hit planeswalkers. Since there are now less planeswalkers does everything also need to target planeswalkers too all the time?

The word stays on the majority of the time for constructed reasons, but it might show up a little less on card more focused on limited.

Hey Mark! Its my birthday so im gonna get a little self indulgent with this one. Im a huge block constructed fan and have been building cubes to kind of fill the void that the current one set release schedule has made in that department. Based off player feedback is there any chance to going back to 2/3 set blocks being the norm like before?

The players, through the buying habits, have shown a large preference for individual sets versus blocks. We can still have consecutive sets on the same world when they make sense, but even those will still be drafted by themselves. With the current data, I am highly skeptical of blocks return.

Have you ever played much pauper?

I don’t play much constructed (at least with released sets), so no.

my son(8yrs) has started to play commander with me and my friends and has shown quite a talent for the game once he learns how the cards in the deck interact.

He is very excited for Bloomburrow as it will be he will be attending the prerelease event with all of us but he was curious to know if the set will allow him to build a very Kindred style deck from it that will focus on the more specific animal types with support? ie otters and bats?

Each of the two-color ten draft archetypes are built around an animal, so if you just draft say Rabbits, you will have a cohesive deck. There is a bit of typal, but it is very light, meaning you’ll be able to use it for constructed, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get what you need in limited.So yes, I think he can do sort of what he wants (make a specific animal deck), but not quite how he thinks he’s going to make it. Also, it’s trickier to play just one animal in sealed versus draft.

"Innistrad is one of my best designs."Yeah, Innistrad was great when it was unique, and gothic horror is an incredibly deep well to draw from. There's tons of source material, and it's easy to make it feel "universal".These days, it feels like every premier set is trying to be Innistrad, unless it's a Storyline Set or a Return Set. The Innistrad-likes all feel like "Magic does [genre]" instead of something actually original, Storyline Sets are practically Return Sets, and the actual Return Sets are half Innistrad-likes anyway.The Modern Horizons sets are the last bastion of bottom-up, Magic doing Magic sets, but they're infrequent, expensive, and overshadowed by how they destroy the Modern metagame every time.I just want a new world that makes me feel like I'm reading the Planeswalker's Guide to Alara again. A world that only makes sense in Magic the Gathering, instead of Magic fitting itself into something that already exists.

I want to begin by stressing something. You’re talking to me, the Head Designer of Magic. I, along with rest of the designers, are in charge of the mechanical execution of design. We create the larger structure of how the set is build, weave in flavorful themes, and design mechanics to play into that structure and theme(s). When I talk about sets I’ve done I’m talking about the part of the process I’m in charge of. With that said, let’s talk about the latest design I led (vision design), Outlaws of Thunder Junction. I hold up its game design to any other set I’ve lead. The mechanics are sharp, useful, and lead towards new play patterns. The limited play and constructed play involving its themes are novel. And while it’s all forward facing, it was designed to be more backwards compatible than previous sets. Plot, in particular, is one of the most exciting new mechanics I’ve designed in a long time. It’s simple in description, but surprisingly deep in strategy. Having the primary focal point of villainy, with a secondary theme of the Western genre, led my team to create something new. Top-down is just an input. Good design can come from any input. Bottom-up design is no better at making good mechanic designs than top-down. I believe current mechanical design is on point, and Outlaws of Thunder Junction, in particular, is my team being on their A game.

I don't dislike outlaw, but I don't see how it makes sense as a single-set mechanic. For Limited, things would be a lot cleaner if you just added a new Outlaw creature type. For Constructed the backwards compatibility is useful, but a single set's worth of payoffs isn't enough to make it worth building around.
So I think batches like outlaw would work more effectively if you intend to use them regularly rather than as single-set mechanics which might possiblysee a return several years later.

For 4-of, 60-card formats, there are plenty of Outlaw mattering cards. You don’t need that many when using four copies.For 1-of, singleton formats, there are four legendary creatures that care about Outlaws.Both have 31 years of creatures of the five relevant creature types.

If/when maximizing the number of creature types on a creature as a draft theme. Perhaps with cards like Captain's Hook (makes a creature a Pirate) or Angelic Destiny (makes a creature an Angel).

If. It’s hard to do for limited and changelings make it too easy for constructed.

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.

Happy birthday Mark! Here's some Magic trivia for you - I just moved to Sweden and they play a unique style of constructed here called Gentry. It's standard 60/15 deck and sideboard, but it can only include 4 unique rares or mythics and 15 uncommons and then the rest of the cards have to common. It's pretty fun and it's very easy to afford several decks. People often bring extras to tournaments to loan to new players

Cool format. Thanks.

I was wondering how you design specifically for constructed 60 card formats. How do you predict whether a card sees constructed play?

First, play design does this, not me.Basically, they make educated guesses at the percentage chance of a card making it in Standard. They then make enough cards with enough chances that mathematically the cards will hit at the rate we’d like.