To clarify my earlier question: After you joined Wizards, what was the first premier set that you were not officially on an R&D team for? (I assume you contributed in some way to almost every set.)

Technically, Onslaught, although I was responsible for morph being in the set, cycling returning, and pushing the typal theme. : )

Hi! This is sort of a random question about the reskins we've seen with universes beyond cards vs. functional reprints to change the flavor of an in-universe card to another in-universe card (like llanowar elves vs. fyndhorn elves). I could run Paths of the Dead (from LOTR commander) in a standard deck, since it *is* cavern of souls. I could not, however, run fyndhorn elves in place of llanowar elves in one of the formats where llanowar elves is legal but fyndhorn elves isn't. The tradeoff to this is that in commander, I can run one fyndhorn elves and one llanowar elves, since they're not the same card, but I can't run a Paths of the Dead and a Cavern of Souls from another printing (ex. LCI), since they're the same card. Would it be possible to print in-universe cards as reskins instead of functional reprints to change the flavor? For example, say you're designing a faction set with tri-color factions, and you want to use the triome lands with cycling, but you're not on Ikoria/New Capenna, so the names don't really fit. If you did a functional reprint to change the flavor, then players in eternal formats could double the number of triomes they run. Is reskinning the card an option you have at your disposal for this kind of situation?

Reskinning is an option, but a resource we want to be careful with.

Is there a reason its worded "Whenever you cycle or discard a card" when cycling IS discarding?

Yes. We were concerned not enough players would realize “when you discard a card” applied to cycling, so we chose a template to make it clearer.

With the return of deserts was there any consideration to making desert a super type like snow? And does it being a land type instead present a hurdle to deserts with the basic land types being printed? I would have been over the moon with the Amonkhet cycling lands having the desert type and still feel they should have.

There was no consideration of making Desert a supertype. Deserts and basic land types can commingle.

Has it ever been considered giving a card multiple cycling abilities? For example, a colorless cycling ability, but also a cheaper colored one

I know we considered a cycling card for a two-brid cost in the first Modern Horizons.

Would battles have to appear in a certain number, like Sagas, or do you think they would be fine to appear in smaller numbers, like cycling?

I assume like any deciduous thing, they can be used in whatever volume needed.

If/when: a card with an off color cycling ability? Like a blue spell that cycles for 1G

Probably when.

"If. What’s the flavor?" (Regarding a Battle card as a commander)Hi Mark,As a game designer, I think your one of your most important goals should be to create designs that play well mechanically speaking that players enjoy playing with. Someone who wants to play with a Battle as a commander likely wants to do so for mechanical game play reasons, not flavor reasons.Similarly, more 4 color commanders being hard to justify with flavor shouldn't be the primary reason they are very seldom created even though there is immense demand for them.There's no flavor justification for Cycling or Kicker but they are deciduous mechanics that play very well and are extremely popular. They are examples of good game design even though one could dismiss them by saying "What's the flavor?" A hardcore Vorthros player might dismiss or dislike mechanics like Cycling and Kicker for that reason but that definitely shouldn't stop you from making designs mechanics.If you have this mentality with things like "mill", "kicker", and "cycling" and it is successful, I don't understand why you can't do other things that would lead to interesting gameplay even if it isn't a perfect flavor homerun?

Thoughts?

Intuition is a key part of good game design. You want things to play as the audience expects them to play. Flavor is an important part of that. If the flavor contradicts the card’s function, it will make players play it wrong. Some mechanics are light on flavor, so you can get away with lots of hand-waving. What does kicker represent? It doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t evoke flavor in a way that will create false expectations. Commanders, by definition, are very flavorful. We can do weird things with them, but because they are so steeped in flavor, we have to be conscious of what the flavor will be, so we can design it such that players will assume the right things about its mechanical function. In short, flavor matters in some places mechanically more than others.One last thing, the reason we don’t do lots of four-color cards is all about design and play balance, and very little about flavor.

if/when cycling cost baseline being reduced to 1 down from 2?

If. We tried that and it didn’t go well.

Re: Rise of the eldrazi being ‘too far away from normal Magic’.Is it possible it would have been received much differently if released today? Information is much more accessible than 13 years ago, and both Magic and the way people interact with it has changed.To me, RotE is much more tame and ‘core magic’ than, say, Ikoria, where Boros is a cycling combo-like deck, mutate is running around and companion creates new deck possibilities.This is one example, but in general, I think the game has and is moving away from what was once ‘core magic’.

One of the big issues with Rise of the Eldrazi wasn’t that there were odd things to do, but rather most of the normal things to do, didn’t work. They were traps. We want people to be able to lean into new themes, but we also want players to be able to ignore it and just draft a “normal” deck.