As mentioned, the odds of another Conspiracy set are low. What about specifically a multiplayer-focused booster set, without the "draft matters" aspect? Or do Commander Legends sets mostly eat up that space?

I do think the chances of a multiplayer-focused booster are still good.

When you were creating Outlaws of Thunder Junction, where you ever concerned that when people talked about drafting OTJ that some older players might be worried about seeing UG madness?

: )For those non-old timers out there. Blocks were often nicknamed with the first letter of each set in the block. So Odyssey/Torment/Judgment draft was often called OTJ. One its major draft archetype was green/blue madness.

I seem to always find lots and lots of discourse about block sets. Two sides of the same argument every time.
Side 1 says something like:"I hate all these random sets, I miss block sets."
To which, Side 2 says; "Well block sets never sold as well at the end, players attention span's are better suited for one and done blocks."
My problem with this response is that it essentially ignores the initial statement. Rather than clarifying what they mean, they assume and answer.
Personally, I miss block sets, but ONLY from a story perspective.
Basically, do sets exactly the same as you're doing now. Draft is better now than blocks were, standard with Foundations sounds fantastic. The only thing I'd like to see is a set of setup, and a set of payoff.
MKM was a set based on a murder mystery with the big twist ending basically included in the release, as an example. It could've benefitted from a real, but delayed, payoff. Set up the consequences for each suspect, then reveal and give different consequences that were hinted at in other ways. Bam. Improved.
The last time we visited New Phyrexia, it was a block, I remember ubiquitous speculation over how the story would wrap up. There were factions events at local game stores, branded posters and packs for the factions at play, etc. I had a friend get the New Phyrexian emblem tattooed on themselves. The story felt *Important* and so much less divorced from magic than it does today.
Usually, in my experience, when someone asks for blocks, they're asking for the story to matter. There are lots of mechanically interesting card games out there, and mechanics are only part of what makes magic, magic!
All I would ask is that writers get the opportunity to do setups and payoffs with magic's evolving story with multiple sers, and that story related sets have *some* play synergies. They don't need to share mechanical themes just to share story themes, but it would be a nice little florish if they had mechanical synchronisets,
Hell, a REALLY good idea (in my opinion) would be to do these sets in a different order than the old method. Modern fantasy novels swap POV characters and follow different stories. Why not set up multiple stories in a row, then start to alternate resolving an older, established plot line, and then starting a new one or swapping to another established one. This really gives players time to get interested and speculate (and making the story FEEL present will likely also boost novels and comics numbers, etc., if you need a monetary reasoning.)
What do you think Mark?

We already do a lot of what you’re asking. Each Magic “year” does have a larger connected story, often with different POV characters.

Do you have a favorite draft environment?

I really enjoyed Shadowmoor/Shadowmoor/Shadowmoor.

When/if: a single set split into two draftable packs. There is some overlap (land cycles, equipment, colorless artifacts, etc) but one pack is Team X (Bolas let's say) which is 3 different archetypes in his colors and the other packs are Team Y (Ugin let's say) which are 3 archetypes in colorless, white, black. All the cards together make a single set, but you would draft Ugin packs with Ugin packs, and then only play against players who drafted Bolas packs.

We did this in Mirrodin Besieged. The set was split in Mirran and Phyrexian, and you chose which side to play when you played in the prerelease.

"Why has the bar for supplemental sets gotten higher? Is it universes beyond?Universes Beyond and Modern Horizons are the biggest two causes." That really sucks, a lot of us really looked forward to the summer supplemental sets because of how fun they were, 2 headed giant draft and conspiracy immediately come to mind.

The bar gets raised because new products do well. More players play them, more players buy them, and more players rank them higher in market research. It’s not some diabolical plot. It’s the game evolving towards what the players are most enjoying.

Hi Mark, I'm actually trying to build an uncube with Unstable as a base, but I'm running into an issue. I don't think there's enough contraption assemblers in the set for the size of cube I want to build. I've been thinking of possibly adjusting some of the overcosted assembling cards to be more in line with the power level, or editing some of the unfinity cards that open attractions to make contraptions instead. It seems a bit extreme to go and edit cards with stickers to suit a cube, but I want to avoid having to run multiple of a card or making the cube smaller. What do you think would be the most in-spirit solution for a cube centered on Unstable?

I would run duplicates, but if that is untenable to you, you could run clones, flickering effects, etc. which allow you to reuse the assemblers you have.

What happened to Gleemax when the Wizards forums were retired? Did the alien brain retire to its home planet? Is it still in the basement at Renton, endlessly playtesting eight draft seats in its mind? Is it depicted on the card Elder Brain? Are you its human avatar?

Eeway on’tday alktay outabay eemaxglay.

If you're playtesting major changes to the draft format (e.g. number and composition of cards in a booster, number of cards each pick) or a new draft format entirely (e.g. Rochester, Winston, Rotisserie), what sort of feedback or data would you try to get to make sure it works well and is fun and interesting? A friend made a really interesting suggestion recently, and I'd love to try it out, but I want to have an idea beforehand of what to ask and pay attention to.

First and foremost is it fun to play. The biggest issues with new formats is do they adapt to what you have, or do you have to change the product to work with the new format.

Hey Mark, why was it decided to remove the draft and set the booster because of confusion amongst them, but putting value booster is better, is supposed to be a support for pauper/pauper commander?

You’re conflating two things that have nothing to do with one another. Draft boosters went away because the majority of the audience preferred set boosters. Play boosters were a way to keep the essence of set boosters while still providing limited play. All of that is mostly centered in local game stores. Value boosters are addressing a need of certain mass market stores to have Magic boosters at a lower price point. They are not a product the vast majority of enfranchised players will ever interact with, and their existence has nothing to do with organized play.