Who was the set design team for the original Big Score set?

Here’s the team:Adam Prosak (lead)Mark GottliebCameron WilliamsMiguel LopezOliver TiuDave Humpherys

Do you happen to have any anecdotes about Sheldon Menery you could share?

I first met Sheldon when he and I were both judges on the Pro Tour. My memory of our first meeting is he was assigned to help me in the Feature Match area. He walks up and says, “I’m Sheldon. Tell me what you want me to do.”I last saw Sheldon at Magic Con Philadelphia. R&D (Aaron Forsythe, Dave Humpherys, Mike Turian) was doing a signing and Sheldon came to do a signing at the table next to us. I remember watching how much joy he got from interacting with the public. In between those two events, which were over twenty-five years apart, I interacted many, many times with Sheldon. He was a person of great passion, who cared a great deal about how what he did impacted those around him. Magic lost a giant ally today, and he will be greatly missed.

Could I get some birthday trivia about Thunder Junction or Bloomburrow?

There’s not a lot I can’t tell you anything that’s not already public. Here’s something. The vision design lead for Bloomburrow is Doug Beyer and the set design lead is Ian Duke. The vision design lead for Outlaws of Thunder Junction is me and the set design lead is Dave Humpherys.Happy Birthday!

who is one of the most Green-leaning people at Wizards (who wouldn't mind you saying so) ?

I know Dave Humpherys identifies as green/blue.

NEO is regarded as being one of the greatest draft sets of all time, and you were lead designer! What were you design aims before the set, and how many of them turned out as envisioned, and how much of the set's success was either 'accidental' or came late in design? And WHY do you think it was successful? ty

Vision design is more about setting up the larger themes and mechanics, including figuring out the core conflict of the set. A lot of talented people downstream of vision design turns that into an awesome draft experience. Neon Dynasty set design was led by Dave Humpherys and play design was led by Andrew Brown.

I really miss articles like the m-files where we learned more about magic development. What are the chances these articles come back?

We still get the occasional article about design past vision design (for example, here’s Dave Humpherys writing about making Neon Dynasty: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-preview/bringing-kamigawa-neon-dynasty-designs-life-2022-01-28), but no one else in R&D is interested in writing an ongoing weekly column. I can see if anyone wants to do the occasional M-Files article.

I just want to say it's nice to see legendary lands again. It's really weird that I can have 3 World Trees in play.

Thank Channel and Dave Humpherys.I should stress legendary lands are only doable in sets where we can adjust for their play issues.

Must say, I was looking forward to Ikoria spoilers to distract me from how boring is staying at home in isolation, and I'm really sad that they are postponed. New cards give me something cool to talk about with my friends, and I desperately need to stop talking epidemiology all the time

I feel your pain. I’ll share a little story with you to whet your appetite for Ikoria.I return from the Throne of Eldraine stream where I first announced the existence of Ikoria (we shot it down in Los Angeles). Dave Humpherys, Ikoria’s lead set designer, comes up to me and says, “So you announced Ikoria?”“Yeah.”“You said that the set had a cool mechanic that was a bit out there. It was something that players would enjoy, but be a bit surprised we actually made.” “Yeah.”“Which mechanic were you taking about?”You see, *two* mechanics in the set fit that description. : )

Hey Mark! Who was on the design team for WAR?

The vision design team was led by me and included Peter Lee, Dave Humpherys, James Wyatt, Jackie Lee, and Ken Nagle. Dave led the set design team, but as I wasn’t on it, I don’t know the team off the top of my head.

Mark! Mark! My Birthday was two days ago and I forgot to ask for trivia! So can I ask for belated trivia on Unstable?

The last card added to the file that saw print was Animate Library. During a development playtest, I remembered the card (I’d tried unsuccessfully to put it into a black-bordered set) and asked Dave (Humpherys, the lead developer at the time) to put it in. Happy Belated Birthday!