I don't know if this is fit for a regular article, a podcast or a Nuts and Bolts, but I'm very curious to know about how you determine numbers/as-fan for Limited archetypes, especially A+B stuff. Like, why did WOE's WU have many tap triggers while OTJ's GU only had one explicit plot-matters card? Why did the tap triggers were all at uncommon but other themes usually have at least one common trigger? I understand it's a feel and testing thing mostly, but any effort to put it into words would be appreciated. :)

The short version is every theme is different and we endlessly playtest to get a sense of the appropriate as-fan. Maybe I can turn that into a whole column or podcast. Not sure.

Hi Mark, Is there an Article or Podcast about how exactly Richard Garfield came up with the ideas? Especially basic lands, one Land per turn rule or the idea of tapping things for use? I mostly like the idea of having 5 colors and the more colors you play the harder it is to cast the right cards on time, that is the perfect system of keeping people out of playing all the best cards in the same deck most of the time.

Here’s the podcast with Richard where I ask about decisions he made in Alpha:

https://media.wizards.com/2020/podcasts/magic/drivetowork737_richardgarfield_Y83uI3oO.mp3

I assume you've probably done a Drive to Work grab bag episode before and I've just missed it or forgotten it? If not that might be an option for some topics people have asked about recently that don't have a full 30 minutes.

I did try one once, but didn’t get a lot of positive feedback on it.

Loved the Bloomburrow vision design podcast! It got me thinking: While Bloomburrow has no particular biome… is the entire plane similar to what we see in this set… or could future sets on Bloomburrow feature other types of biomes? Stated another way: In the podcast Doug said this one is “European-ish or North Eastern America-ish”… but could we see a Bloomburrow set that was say, tropically or rainforest-ish or polar-ish” Or does the whole plane look/feel like this iteration?

I don’t think it’s been established. We tend to leave some amount of each world open-ended to allow for flexibility on a revisit.

Can we have a podcast about the differences and analogies in Ethos between Magic and D&D(Color pie vs. alignments)?

I am not nearly as well versed in D&D’s alignments as I am Magic’s color pie.

Hi maro! Do you have any plans for a Lessons Learned podcast episode on March of the Machine?

I do. It’s the next Lessons Learned podcast.

Could we get a Drive to Work episode on Kai Budde?

There are plans to record one.

Driving to SDCC. Cmon mark you just need a topic you can talk about for 19 hours straight. Don’t be a weenie. Give the people what they want! ;)

Not a lot of good 19 hour topics. : )

Hi Mark. I’d like to request a drive to work on mechanical cohesion in a set. To what degree do you want mechanics to synergise vs enable diverse gameplay? Thanks!

I did do a podcast on synergy:

https://audio.transistor.fm/m/shows/21454/f7e350830246fc208b16fbfc21d91869.mp3

FYI on May 16th I asked that given how disguise reworks morph and the dev issues with heroic, what would you consider changing to rework heroic. You replied “there is an upcoming set that answers that very question”. I presumed you were referring to a Marvel set, but qanadhar left a comment certain it was Bloomburrow. Just some of the fun foreshadowing of Blogatog. :)(I presume there’s an article or podcast that explains the rework soon?)

Next week’s article talks about the mechanics. Short version: heroic looked into allowing abilities, but there existed things you could repeatedly activate for 0, so we left it off. Valiant added abilities back in to help it trigger more, and used the once a turn restriction to deal with the problem interactions.