Mark!I invoke the sacred rite of Borthday Trivia!Can I get trivia you haven't shared before about the gatewatch sets (BFZ-WAR) please?

Haven’t shared is tough as I produce a lot of content. I pitched an early version of the story where Jace appears to everyone, including the audience, to be killed by Bolas in Hour of Devastation. He then shows up with amnesia on Ixalan. The idea was the audience would assume Jace was dead for three months.Happy Birthday!

I understand that there are things you can point to that are visible consequences of the Phyrexian invasion like story content and the deaths of Eldraine’s king and queen, but doesn’t it say something that you need to point those out as counter arguments to begin with?The problem with threatening a Phyrexian planar threat is that the damage was implied to be irreversible. Compleation often involved grotesque surgical mutilation, so it doesn’t make sense that compleated characters could return to normal so easily and without any significant scarring. Phyrexian oil is supposed to be so dangerous that a single drop could eventually infect and corrupt an entire plane, so it seems impossible to eradicate. Even ignoring the resilience of the Phyrexians themselves, a large scale military invasion aided by the most powerful beings on each plane should have left those planes in a post-apocalyptic state, yet all of that seems to be off-screen or completely disregarded. We went underground for Ixalan, so we didn’t see the devastation. We went into the wilds for Eldraine, so we didn’t see the courts in shambles. Ravnica seems to be the same as ever, just with more detective hats. And the last set of the year that immediately followed the invasion takes place on a plane nobody even lived on during the invasion, so there were no consequences to show off.I think the real issue isn’t necessarily that there weren’t consequences, but that you guys chose deliberately not to show them on cards, outside of the desparked planeswalkers and a few cards in Aftermath. As it is, it’s difficult to believe that the Phyrexian threat that was built up over decades could be so easily repelled AND completely defeated at the height of their power, but I would argue that the sets directly following the invasion should have all had a blatantly dark, somber, post-apocalyptic theme. Instead, we got a bunch of light hearted costume party sets that seemed chosen specifically to NOT show how much damage was done. I get that you want to have a tone shift after a darker year, but it just feels like instead of getting closure, we all just got whiplash instead. It would have been better to show a struggling multiverse slowly learning to rebuild before diving into the next big arc.

There’s a big difference between did big things happen and do we need to focus on them? For the Vorthoses who read the stories, the Phyrexian War had huge consequences for many worlds. From a game standpoint, it changed how we used a whole card type and allowed us to make sets we couldn’t make before. The impact of the events of March of the Machine on flavor and mechanics was major.The reason we didn’t focus on the outcomes on the cards and have a year of dreary sets is we strongly believed the majority of the players didn’t want that.

You stated during & after Amonkhet Block that each set was part 'top-down Egypt' and part 'top-down Nicol Bolas', with AKH leaning heavier towards the former and HOU leaning heavier towards the latter.
With regards to Outlaws of Thunder Junction, would you say it leans heavier 'top-down Wild West', or 'top-down villain set'? Or neither? Or can't you really go into it yet?
Thanks Mark.

It’s built mechanically more like a villain set, but the flavoring leans towards the Western aesthetic.

How was the Amonkhet / Hour of Devastation limited format received? I know it soured design on -1/-1 counters, but I seem to remember people really enjoying the format. If so, does that do anything for -1/-1 counters' standing in the Storm Scale?

Amonkhet block is what soured R&D on -1/-1 counters.

In Amonkhet, the exert mechanic was only used for attack triggers. In Hour of Devastation, exert was also used on tap abilities. Can you tell us anything about why exert on tap abilities didn’t appear until the second set with exert?

In blocks, we liked to have the mechanics evolve over time.

Hey Mark, thanks for taking us back to ixalan! I started magic with the hour of devastation prerelease, so ixalan was my first full block and i think it's still some of the best world building of any magic set. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the return is like, both for the world and the mechanics

I too am excited for you to see it.

"I’m not sure other zones get searched. " Cards like Surgical Extraction and Necromentia search opponent's hands and graveyards, and Finale of Devastation, Boonweaver Giant, and Chandra, Heart of Fire search your own graveyard for specific cards. It mostly seems to be used in conjunction with library searching to broaden an effect and in cases where the effect is looking for a specific card.

I think you only “search” another zone when doing it in conjunction with searching a library, so it would be odd to restrict “searching” and have it affect other zones only when the library is also searched.

"When/If: A character we currently know having their spark ignite? I’ll say when. It seems like something we’ll do eventually." BTDT. Samut had a Creature card in Amonkhet, then sparked during in Hour of Devastation, where she had a Planeswalker card.

So did Narset. In both cases though, we made the legendary creature knowing they were becoming a planeswalker. I think the question is a character that’s known just as a legendary creature changing not just in the next set.

Hi, Mark! I enjoy seeing Urza's Saga join the ranks of Time Spiral, Mirrodin Besieged, and Hour of Devastation, among others. Can I request more cards named after sets (or more sets named after cards)?

R&D seems to enjoy doing it.

Can I request more multicolor gods? I love the design of the Kaldheim gods, but with them we’ll have 5 complete cycles of mono colored gods. Only one complete cycle of 2 color plus 5 others (3 from hour of devastation and the 2 from TBD). I was hopeful Kaldheim would have our first 3-color gods.

The reason we err toward less colors on our Gods is to increase the number of different decks that can play them. Tri-colored Gods is something we can keep an eye out for when the right opportunity presents itself.