Gotta admit some disappointment with part of the bloomburrow preview. It was really cool seeing the counters in set list until the set dropped and it became “two of these are evergreen, two are ability counters which are deciduous, one is flood which has appeared on and off for two decades…and the ones new to the set are actually all just flavorfully named charge or verse counters in how they work if it’s just one-off cards building on themselves for an effect to count.” Which is super disappointing as it feels like if new counters are named they should mean something

I list counters a lot of the time, and it’s mostly for flavor. The majority of Magic sets have existing evergreen counters (like +1/+1), sometimes deciduous ones (like flying), and usually a few new ones that are charge counters with added flavor. Usually, if there’s some new functionality, that’s it’s own bullet point.

How do you navigate the tension between uniqueness value (this beloved mechanic shows up once every ten years, so its appearance is an exciting event!) versus giving players what they like (cycling and kicker falling in popularity as they become mundane). With something like Mistform Ultimus --> Changelings, the answer is obvious: It ceases to be unique when a set comes along that needs it. With the decision to make landfall (and now convoke) deciduous, it seems a lot less clear. How do you weigh the demand for popular mechanics against them inevitably becoming less popular?

Mechanics have a splash value and a practical value. The splash value starts high and declines with time. The practical value grows as we better understand its uses from a design perspective. We try to milk the splash value as best we can, but once that is mostly used up, we focus on practical value.Long-term, the practical value is more important than the splash value as it’s what we be impactful for the larger portion of the mechanic’s life.

If/When: Deciduous colorless enchantment spells?

Colorless is already deciduous. And enchantments are evergreen. So, I think it will happen. I’m not sure it will become a regular thing, but who know?

If/when a new unique to mtg creature type that is deciduous?

All creature types are deciduous meaning thy can get used by any set that needs them.

The "Create a CARDNAME token" tech from MH3 actually seems to have a lot of applications outside Modern Horizons sets (Roxanne, Starfall Savant etc). Would it be safe to assume this tech creating token copies of previous cards will end up deciduous at least?

I’m not sure how much we’ll use that tech in premier sets.

"Probably when. Prowess is deciduous and tertiary in white." You've been SAYING that prowess is tertiary in White for 9 years now, but there has never been a mono-white card with prowess outside of Khans block that isn't a reprint of a card from Khans block. Even among those reprints, 3 of the 4 are from Masters sets. So, if White is supposed to have access to prowess, I'd like to see it actually have access to prowess. Otherwise, I kind of wish you'd just admit that it's only in red and blue.

White being allowed access to prowess means we’re allowed to make it if we find a set that needs it, not that we’re forced to make it. A tertiary ability can take many years to appear.

Hi Mark, I really enjoyed your podcast about monocolor design. It made me wonder, is there a chance Devotion could ever become deciduous? So much inherently incentivizes playing more colors; Devotion is a popular and intuitive mechanic that could be used to incentivize playing less colors more often and doesn't require any sort of structural support to be placed into a set.

Devotion only works in a set built to support monocolor play, so it’s not the kind of thing we’d make evergreen.

Was there ever any consideration of making the Mercenary tokens predefined?

You have to be pretty deciduous before we’d choose to do that.

I thought Dices only appeared in D&D-related sets, but a small amount has recently appeared in Fallout. Does this mean that Dice may be employed in the future if it fits the flavor of the work with which you are collaborating?

Dice are deciduous and can appear in any product that wants them. We are cautious with how often and where we use dice.

Affinity was one three different cards in ONE, not just one.

Maybe affinity is deciduous. It’s not as we have an official list (my article on it is probably the most definitive thing we have). It really boils down to how often we want to use it.