Would Earl of Squirrel have been able to be printed as black border if he was first printed in Unfinity? I.e. is "squirrellink" too silly an ability name even if everything the card does works in black border rules?

It could work if written out, but we can’t _____link things in normal Magic.

Was making Universe Beyond a silver border thing ever considered to reduce backlash from enfranchised players? I mean, Wizards had to have remembered the furor over the Walking Dead cards, but then the pure excitement over the Transformers and My Little Pony cards. It leaves the ability for people who love those IP's to still play the cards for fun, but keeps it out of tournaments. Heck, there could even be separate silver border tournaments and leagues, and it would open other IPs to be bolder.

Let’s explore the alternate universe where we gave these cards a silver border. We’re making a whole bunch of unique cards that work perfectly fine within the rules. These aren’t Un-cards where they’re pushing boundaries mechanically. These are cards that you could easily play if we let you. You have a deck where a certain card would work perfectly, but because it’s a different IP, it’s treated as “not real”. You have to bug your fellow players to use it, and if one person in your play group says no, it’s off limits. In this universe, I’m getting angry players upset that we made a bunch cool cards that “we don’t let you play”. How do I know this? Because I get messages all the time about Un-cards. When are we going to make Contraptions or host/augment or Earl of Squirrel in black border? That’s the flip of side of this issue. There are a lot of players who want to be able to play whatever cards they want to play and us artificially, in their minds, making a line is us fundamentally doing something we shouldn’t. The point here is we can’t win. Neither path we could have chosen will make everyone happy. (Kind of a truism in Magic design.) So, we picked the path that we think will make the most players happy. I also firmly believe that this issue, when the dust settles, is not going to be as world ending as it feels to some players right now. Why do I believe this? Because I’ve been here before. Many, many times. There are so many things we’ve chosen to do, that the initial response was “this is going to kill the game”. And it didn’t. In fact, with time those decisions become part of what people love about Magic. So yes, we did explore the path of a walled off subset of cards where you can only play them in certain formats, and we decided that that path, in the end, would make more players upset.

Earl of Squirrel was updated to being a Noble... but I find it funny, because in Silver Border World errata does not exist. What made Eli change it when there is no situation where it can count?

Errata exists in silver border.

If Grusilda, Monster Masher mashes an Infinity Elemental with Earl of Squirrel, How do I manage my infinite squirrels ?

Carefully.

A number of silver bordered cards are used by my play group (there is a dice rolling deck and Earl of Squirrel is used in a Squirrel deck) what are your thoughts on silver bordered cards being mixed into regular modern for casual play?

I’m all for it. If your play group allows it, go for it!

Was 'Earl of Squirrel' named that primarily because the rhyme felt good, or was 'Duke of Squirrel' considered and maybe discarded because not enough people would get the song reference?

We came up with Earl of Squirrel and liked it. I don’t remember anyone suggesting Duke of Squirrel.

Earl of Squirrel is awesome. Any chance for a legendary squirrel or squirrel planeswalker, you know, on the un-4 set that may or may not ever happen! A maybe will suffice :)

Maybe. : )

What's your favorite Squirrel or Squirrel-related card?

Squirrel Farm, although Earl of Squirrel and Deranged Hermit are close.

Would you support a silver border house rule that says "creatures with royalty titles in their name (like Earl of Squirrel) can be your commander"?

Silver border already requires buy-in from your play group. Ask them if you can use Earl of Squirrel as your Commander.

why wasn't Earl of Squirrel legendary? my un-mander squirrel deck is sad! :(

It stacks. I wanted Squirrel decks to be able to have four of them on the battlefield. For regular readers this is another example of the tension with legendary permanents having downside text, it forces us to have to pick a side every tine we make a lord.