Wazzzaaaaap, Mark da Shark,Just wanted to send kudos and share my excitement about so much of Bloomburrow! It's gonna be my first prerelease in a long while, since M20, I think, as well as there's so many things to love about it. I've been a big fan of Doug Beyer since Kaladesh, glad he was the lead designer on this set. Also super pumped to be getting both a revisit to the Heroic mechanic in Valiant, one of my favorite mechanics from Theros, and the amount of rabbit typal support. My Cadira commander deck is gonna go through a major redesign when the set is properly out. Hope you have a lovely day!

I’m glad you’re so excited. I can’t wait to hear all the prerelease stories.

My roommate is obssessed (for some reason) with the idea that you personally made a Raccoon the commander of the Gruul Bloomburrow Precon. Did you actually work on these decks?

I worked on the set (Doug Beyer lead vision design and Ian Duke led set design), but not the Commander decks.

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!

Re: planeswalking vs. teleporting. I believe it *is* possible to planeswalk to another part of the same plane, just very, very difficult. In fact, the Wanderer does it in the NEO story! Also, years ago when Doug Beyer still used his blog, he said that Nicol Bolas could probably do it, and that he liked it as an ability for villains.

As always, I was explaining the default. It is possible for an individual planeswalker to have abilities that let them do something most planeswalkers can’t.

In your podcast with Doug Beyer on "War of the Spark," it focused on planeswalkers, but I'm wondering how non-planeswalkers like Niv-Mizzet factored into the design or story? How important was Niv in development, especially considering his popularity? Did his 5-color avatar version emerge as a side note or afterthought? Or did it develop in tandem with the larger storyline?

The legendary creatures were more handled card by card in set design.

Hey Mark, it’s my birthday and I’d like to ask for some trivia about anything this year that you’re proud of.

I think Jumpstart is the coolest product we made in 2020. Doug Beyer came up with the idea and it was part of the first Hackathon (the same thing where Modern Horizons came from). It took a while to make it because of printing challenges. Happy Birthday!

Just wanted to give you my thumbs up for Jumpstart. The base concept seems quite accessible for newer players, while the card pool is desirable for enfranchised ones. Well done!

The thanks should go to Doug Beyer and the vision design and Set design teams.

Is there a vorthos version of your blog? I have a ton of questions about lore

Doug Beyer has a Tumblr, but he has regularly answered it in a long time.

Is there a tumblr dedicated to just lore (official)?

Not an official one. Technically, Doug Beyer has a Tumblr, but he updates infrequently.

Out of curiosity who was in charge of initial storybuilding for War? And who pitched the telling the story of the events through spoilers idea?

Doug Beyer was the architect of the Bolas Arc. He was also the one that pitched the chronological preview.