Hey Mark! We've seen evil angels in Magic many, many times, but not really the opposite counterpart. Can I request unambiguously heroic/good demons for a change? At least one? As a treat?

Why isn't Selective Obliteration a Kindred Sorcery- Eldrazi? Its a colorless Eldrazi flavored card without devoid. I thought for MH3 (and its commander set) the Eldrazi flavor cards would either be devoid or eldrazi . Thank you for asnwering our questions sir.

There are three colorless instants and sorceries with colorless mana costs in the Modern Horizons III Commander decks. One has Kindred Eldrazi (Eldritch Immunity) and the other two (Eldrazi Confluence & Selective Obliteration) don’t, meaning Eldritch Immunity is the outlier, not Selective Obliteration. I’m not sure why one was Kindred and the other two not. It does demonstrate the slippery slope that discourages us from using Kindred often.

"I'd say not super high. Let me demonstrate: Have you ever played with a Nightstalker?" I would argue this is a self fulfilling prophecy; the only reason I've never played with a Nightstalker is because you haven't printed one in 24 years!

The issue was: is there nostalgia for Nightstalkers?

As a follow-up to my previous question, you said Dinosaurs can't be "iconic" because they are too popular to use at common. Currently there are, not counting transforms: 6 Uncommon Angels, 3 Common Angels, 3 Uncommon Demons, 2 Common Demons, 3 Uncommon Dragons, 1 Common Dragon, 5 Uncommon Dinosaurs, 2 Common Dinosaurs. There are more lower rarity angels than Dinosaurs, and Dragons/Demons aren't far off.

You need to look at current data (last ten years) and we make the one exception for a set with that creature type as the theme, which happens very infrequently.

Hi, I just wanted to say, as someone who’s always loved silver border, and was super excited for Unfinity, and even suggested on this blog that un-sets should be a mix of silver and black border, I’m currently very unenthused about unifinity. I’d like to explain why:While I personally think an un-set being a mix of black and silver border is great, putting the distinction as a small holo stamp, rather than the clearer borders has resulted in a continuous series of misconceptions. Each preview for unfinity has shown the same card with both the acorn and the regular stamp. The first preview had a silver border reprint with the regular stamp. Magar had both. To make it worse, some cards, like Far Out, have an acorn stamp yet feel like they should work in black border while stickers is apparently going to be eternal-playable. The errors and the lack of clarity of what effects can/can’t be acorn, means people are unable to trust the previews they’re seeing as being accurate. This results in the discussion only being about the eternal legality of cards instead of what’s fun and how things play.The reason for my lack of enthusiasm is not due to anything in the set, rather, the marketing, whoever was in charge of these previews, has so mismanaged the set that instead of exciting me - a silver border player - I am significantly less excited than I was. I have to actively remind myself that you’re excited for a reason and take it on faith in you and the rest of the design team, while the previews continue to put me off.I hope as the set gets closer to release, this will change, because I want to support un-sets. But the marketing has really lost me. I am genuinely surprised at how much it has affected my anticipation. So surprised I felt compelled to tell you in the hopes you can pass this on to the right people so they learn from their mistakes.Thank you.

There have only been two mistakes, and it’s the same mistake (showing the wrong security symbol). When we make files, we make a version we use to show online (we call them HRR’s, but I have no idea what that stands for). Unfinity is the first set where the security stamp is a field that needs to be proofed on the HRR, and the system just wasn’t set up to do that proofing, because it dwasn’t a thing we had to worry about. We’ve now changed our process, so it is. Again, Magar of the Magic Strings is eternal and Water Gun Balloon Game is acorn. Everything else was what it said it was.Things like Far Out just demonstrate how fuzzy the line is between acorn and eternal. It often relies on minute details that the average player isn’t aware of, but that doesn’t mean on our end there isn’t clarity. I do believe when you get to see the full set, you’ll be excited. I just had to proof collation, which meant I opened up actual boost packs and it just reminded me how excited I am for the set. Un-sets just let us do things we normally can’t and the design team really had fun tapping into cool spaces.

Hello Mark! Hope you are doing well today! Given the resounding success of the new Kamigawa set, does this change any of the conventional wisdom about returning to old worlds? I would really like to see a return to Lorwyn at this point but without the drastic redesign NEO gave to Kamigawa. I think when a set doesn't do well there's a lot of extraneous factors, the economy, power level, sets around it(kamigawa paid for the sins of Mirrodin). There's a lot going on and I don't think it's fair to punish the world setting for design mistakes or execution like was done to Kamigawa. Lorwyn is the same way. The player base is also very different now, so for people like me, it would be our first time there and we'd like to experience the flavor and visuals of that setting first hand. Not after the fact many years later. Planes themselves should be allowed second chances. Look at how well that went for Kamigawa, and I'd argue you didn't need to do the cyberpunk redress, but I don't think hurt either.

Neon’s Dynasty’s success (the data’s not officially in yet, but all signs are good) will make pitching old worlds that had a bad first outing a little easier, but it still needs a strong pitch to get a green light. Neon Dynasty didn’t succeed because it was a troublesome world/block, it succeeded despite it. We had a cool new take on it, mechanically and creatively. It’s like twisting your ankle and then winning a marathon. The twisting of your ankle was a factor you had to overcome, not a factor that resulting in you winning.That said, the big takeaway is the value of nostalgia and how we can use it to craft new sets. Neon Dynasty and Brothers’ War demonstrate we understand its potency, and successes like Neon Dynasty means we’ll be bolder in finding other ways to harness it.

Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like people are complaining a lot more about stuff in these innistrad sets than usual. Plenty of sets have cards that do a keyworded action without saying the keyword, but consider seems to have gotten way more attention than others. Plenty of mechanics over the years are just kicker, but cleave seems to be getting attention for that more so than things like demonstrate or the mastery cycle. Why do you think this is?

I just think it’s been a long twenty months.

Hey Mark! I hope you're having a good one today!I was wondering if I could invoke birthday trivia to learn more about my favorite planeswalker, Elspeth?

So many players thought Elspeth had blonde hair, we made sure to show her without her helmet, to demonstrate it wasn’t true. Happy Birthday!

Just wanted to say focusing on the conflict of the enemy color pairs in Strixhaven seems inspired. It makes so much sense that I'm surprised I've never heard of it being done before. Could we see a shift post-Strixhaven for more design on conflict for enemy pairs and overlap for allied color pairs, or do you think people are already anchored in the color pair treatments from sets like Ravnica?

Strixhaven is us trying to demonstrate that there are other ways to do factions that aren’t just how Ravnica did them.

Mark, with squirrel farm, do you have to tell them who the artist is if they guess wrong?

Yes. The change in rules text is confusing people. If they guess wrong, you have to show them the right answer to demonstrate they’ve guessed wrong. The card is not supposed to give you infinite squirrels because an opponent doesn’t know an artist of a card.